A baseless Mann UVa email – claims by Mann spliced and diced

In the same week as MBH98 was published I wrote an email on the ‘ClimateSkeptics’ circulation list. That email objected to the ‘hockeystick’ graph because the graph had an overlay of ‘thermometer’ data over the plotted ‘proxy’ data. This overlay was – I said – misleading because it was an ‘apples and oranges’ comparison: of course, I was not then aware of the ‘hide the decline’ (aka “Mike’s Nature trick”) issue.

Unknown to me, somebody copied my email to Michael Mann and he replied.

Mann’s response consists solely of personal abuse against me and, importantly, it does not address the issue which I had raised immediately upon seeing the ‘hockeystick’ graph. Hence, I am certain that the graphical malpractice of the ‘hockeystick’ was both witting and deliberate.

I’ve reproduced the email below, the redactions were in the linked content that Courtney cites. Mann’s claims about dataset splicing are laughable, as even the Muir Russell investigation (for the later version which appeared in the IPCC TAR) labeled it as such, as McIntyre notes:

Here are Muir Russell’s comments on the IPCC 2001 incident (of which Mann was Lead Author), which they somewhat conflated with the WMO 1999 incident of the “trick” email:

In relation to “hide the decline” we find that, given its subsequent iconic significance (not least the use of a similar figure in the TAR), the figure supplied for the WMO Report was misleading in not describing that one of the series was truncated post 1960 for the figure, and in not being clear on the fact that proxy and instrumental data were spliced together. We do not find that it is misleading to curtail reconstructions at some point per se, or to splice data, but we believe that both of these procedures should have been made plain – ideally in the figure but certainly clearly described in either the caption or the text.

>X-Sender: ???@holocene.evsc.virginia.edu
>Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 10:29:15 -0400
>To: ???@lanl.gov
>From: “Michael E. Mann” <???@virginia.edu>
>Subject: Re: Global Surface Record Must Be Wrong
>Cc: ???@geo.umass.edu, ???@uea.ac.uk
>
>Chick,
>
>This guys email is intentional deceipt. Our method, as you know, doesn’t
>include any “splicing of two different datasets”-this is a myth perptuated
>by Singer and his band of hired guns, who haven’t bothered to read our
>papers or the captions of the figures they like to mis-represent…
>
>Phil Jones, Ray Bradley, and Malcolm Hughes dispelled much of the mythology
>expressed below years ago.
>
>This is intentional misrepresentation. For his sake, I hope does not go
>public w/ such comments!
>
>mike
>
>>Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 08:38:35 +0100 ???(BST)
>>X-Envelope-From: ???@courtney01.cix.co.uk
>>X-Sender: ???@mail.compulink.co.uk
>>To: Chick Keller <???@lanl.gov>
>>From: COURTNEY <???@courtney01.cix.co.uk>
>>Subject: Re: Global Surface Record Must Be Wrong
>>X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by
>holocene.evsc.virginia.edu id DAA27832
>>
>>Dear Chick:
>>
>>Your past performance demonstrates that your recent piece to Peter Dietze is
>>unworthy of you. Smears and inuendoes are not adequate substitutes for
>>evidence and reasoned argument. You say;
>>”As to Michael Mann’s “hocky stick” paleo-temperature graph, I realize why
>>many attack it for it puts the nail in the coffen of the argument that
>>recent natural variability is as large as what has been observed in the 20th
>>century.”
>>
>>No ! People attack the ‘hockey stick’ because it is uses an improper
>>procedure to assess inadequate data as a method to provide a desired result.
>>I have defended Mann et al. from accusations of scientific “fraud” because I
>>am willing to accept that this was done in naive stupidity, but I am not
>>willing to accept that is good science. As you say, “people like Mann,
>>Briffa, Jones, etc.” have conducted “careful work”, but doing the wrong
>>thing carefully does not make it right.
>>
>>The ‘hockey stick’ is obtained by splicing two different data sets. Similar
>>data to the earlier data set exists for up to near the present and could
>>have been spliced on, but this would not show the ‘hockey stick’ and was not
>>done.
>>
>>Also, it is not true to say, as you have;
>>”But, it’s going to take more than rhetoric about Europe’s Little Ice Age
>>and Medieval Warming to get around the careful work of people like Mann,
>>Briffa, Jones, etc.”
>>Nobody in their right mind is going to place more trust in the proxy data of
>>”Mann, Briffa, Jones, etc.” than in the careful – and taxed – tabulations in
>>the Doomesday Book. The Medieval Warm Period is documented from places
>>distributed around the globe, and it is not adequate to assert that it was
>>”not global” because it did not happen everywhere at exactly the same time:
>>the claimed present day global warming is not happening everywhere at the
>>exactly the same time. Indeed, you say;
>>”recent temperature anomalies show that, while the tropics is cooler than
>>usual due to La Niña, the rest of the world is pretty much still as warm as
>>in 1998.”
>>
>>It is historical revisionism to assert that the Little Ice Age and Medieval
>>Warming did not happen or were not globally significant. It will take much,
>>much more than analyses of sparse and debatable proxy data to achieve such a
>>dramatic overturning of all the historical and archaelogical evidence for
>>the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. Those who wish to make
>>such assertions should explain why all the historical and archaelogical
>>evidence is wrong or – failing that – they should expect to be ridiculed.
>>
>>All the best
>>
>>Richard
>>
>>>Dear Peter,
>>>
>>>In a recent message to Tom Wigley you wrote:
>>>
>>>>”Nowadays, what is measured is mostly quite correct. This holds for the
>>>>counts of frogs, butterflies and for the MSU measurements as well as for
>>>>the ground station readings. What is seriously flawed, are the biased
>>>>*interpretations*. So the surface record may be not wrong at all and
>>>>part of the warming is indeed anthropogenic. Wrong is only the paradigm
>>>>that ground warming is mostly caused by CO2 – and that this warming has
>>>>to show up in the lower troposphere as well. It is striking how the
>>>>ground warming grid pattern coincides with winter heating (Vincent Gray)
>>>>- if the warming was caused by CO2 it should rather be evenly
>>>>distributed over the globe, MSU-detected and only being modified by
>>>>meteorological conditions. Note that this energy caused warming only
>>>>depends on our energy demand and does hardly increase with CO2
>>>>concentration. So this warming should neither be allocated to the CO2
>>>>increment nor be misused with future CO2 projections.”
>>>
>>>I have been looking at NCDC plots of global temperature anomalis divided
>>>into three regions- tropics (20N–20S) and the rest of the
>>>globe–(20N–90N) and (20S–90S). When looked at that way, recent
>>>temperature anomalies show that, while the tropics is cooler than usual due
>>>to La Niña, the rest of the world is pretty much still as warm as in 1998.
>>>This is particularly true of northern subtropics and southern subtropical
>>>oceans. The most recent data in fact show the following: for the period
>>>March-May 2000, the northern subtropics are the warmest march-may ever, and
>>>the southern subtropics are essentially as warm as in 1998. Note that this
>>>is not in the winter for either hemisphere. Thus, it would seem to be
>>>important not to make too much of the winter-only observations.
>>>
>>>As to Michael Mann’s “hocky stick” paleo-temperature graph, I realize why
>>>many attack it for it puts the nail in the coffen of the argument that
>>>recent natural variability is as large as what has been observed in the
>>>20th century. Gene Parker in the most recent Physics Today just pushed
>>>that point of view citing 20 year-old work as his only support. But, it’s
>>>going to take more than rhetoric about Europe’s Little Ice Age and Medieval
>>>Warming to get around the careful work of people like Mann, Briffa, Jones,
>>>etc. And more recently , Tom Crowley’s article in last week’s Science!!!
>>>Their work includes those acknowledged regional events (LIA and MWP) and
>>>still shows the 20th cent. to be anomalous. (I might add here that it also
>>>calls into question suggestions that solar variability has an additional
>>>indirect forcing amplification since that should have come out of the data.
>>>Instead most published studies show a significant solar influence but a
>>>moderate one.) And so the only way around recent thousand year paleo
>>>studies is for more comprehensive hemispheric and global studies that fill
>>>in acknowledged gaps and in addition show that climate variability is
>>>larger than recent studies show.
>>>
>>> Perhaps a more fruitful approach would be to ask what the magnitude
>>>of regional variations has been in the past 150 years. If there are no
>>>regions whose temperature variations were very far from the global average,
>>>then one could legitimately ask how clear anomalies such as the little ice
>>>age could have been sustained in the face of the larger hemispheric
>>>climate. As one example I might cite the eastern United States and perhaps
>>>a large region to the north east since 1940. It clearly has not
>>>participated in the global trend, so much so that urban heat island fans
>>>cite it as an example of how good records (the US) don’t show as much
>>>warming as bad records (the rest of the world).
>>>
>>>Regards,
>>>Charles. “Chick” F. Keller,
>>>Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics/University of California
>>>Mail Stop MS C-305
>>>Los Alamos National Laboratory
>>>Los Alamos, New Mexico, 87545
>>>???@lanl.gov
>>>Phone: (505)???
>>>FAX: (505)???
>>>http://www.igpp.lanl.gov/climate.html
>>>
>>>Every thoughtful man who hopes for the creation of a contemporary culture
>>>knows that this hinges on one central problem: to find a coherent relation
>>>between science and the humanities. –Jacob Bronowski
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>_________________________________________
> Professor Michael E. Mann
> Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
> University of Virginia
> Charlottesville, VA 22903
>_________________________________________
>e-mail: ???@virginia.edu Phone: (804)??? FAX: (804)???
> http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.html
>
>
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 ???
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 ???
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email ???@uea.ac.uk
NR4 7TJ
UK

============================================================UPDATE: Steve McIntyre responded in comments, saying he didn’t think the “splicing” issue in MBH98 was a substantial issue for him, and I responded to him, giving my reasons for why I disagree.

For the sake of completeness to discussing this issue, I’m elevating his comment and my response to the body of the post. – Anthony

Anthony, this post has numerous errors, none of which should be made by people interested in this topic. It is very disappointing to read such material.

In Mann et al 1998 (as Jean S first figured out), to calculate the smooth, Mann padded the MBH98 proxy reconstruction after its 1980 end point with instrumental data. Mann only used the smooth up to 1980. This was “Mike’s Nature trick”. Jean S observed the irony of this procedure, given Mann’s protestations against splicing, but the effect was relatively subtle. Contra Courtney’s conflation of “hide the decline aka Mike’s Nature trick, Mike’s Nature trick applied in Mann et al 1998 had NOTHING to do with “hide the decline” – which was an issue with the Briffa reconstruction.

Further, in Courtney’s 1998 email, he said:

The ‘hockey stick’ is obtained by splicing two different data sets. Similar data to the earlier data set exists for up to near the present and could have been spliced on, but this would not show the ‘hockey stick’ and was not done.

In the Mann et al 1998 diagram criticized in Courtney’s email, the proxy reconstruction and the observed data are distinguished by being plotted in different colors or different line type. In other words, they were not “spliced” in the diagram. In Courtney’s recent email to Anthony, he says that the above email “objected to the ‘hockeystick’ graph because the graph had an overlay of ‘thermometer’ data over the plotted ‘proxy’ data. This overlay was – I said – misleading because it was an ‘apples and oranges’ comparison: of course,” I, for one, would never have guessed that this was the criticism being made in the original email. While Mann’s response was marred by his all-too-typical invective, I can well understand why he rejected the allegation in Courtney’s email.

In Courtney’s recent covering email to Anthony, he now characterizes his earlier objection as an objection to proxy reconstructions being plotted on the same graph as observations as follows:

That email objected to the ‘hockeystick’ graph because the graph had an overlay of ‘thermometer’ data over the plotted ‘proxy’ data. This overlay was – I said – misleading because it was an ‘apples and oranges’ comparison: of course, I was not then aware of the ‘hide the decline’ (aka “Mike’s Nature trick”) issue.

While, as noted above, it would have been very difficult, if not impossible, for a contemporary reader to discern this meaning, this criticism is equally invalid in my opinion. I, for one, absolutely do not take issue with plotting a proxy reconstruction on the same scale as observations. I and others take issue with the “divergence problem” precisely because when one plots the Briffa reconstruction against observed temperatures in the 20th century, the two plots diverge. According to Courtney’s criticism, it would be invalid to do such a plot. This is absurd. This does not mean that I endorse the muddiness of Mann’s graphics or other defects. Only that I, for one, do not take issue with plotting a reconstruction and observations on the same scale. On the contrary, it is something that I’ve done on many occasions. As I said to Courtney at CA on this point, if I’m unconvinced on this issue, I can’t imagine why a judge or jury would be convinced.

In the WMO 1999 graphic, Jones deleted values of the Briffa reconstruction after 1950 or so (the decline), spliced instrumental temperature to the end of the record, smoothed the combination and plotted the spliced version (without peeling back to 1950 as in Mike’s Nature trick.)

Muir Russell criticized the truncation and splicing of data in WMO1999 as follows:

the figure supplied for the WMO Report was misleading in not describing that one of the series was truncated post 1960 for the figure, and in not being clear on the fact that proxy and instrumental data were spliced together.

However, he did not take issue with plotting proxy reconstructions and observations on the same graphic. (Not that Muir Russell would be definitive on this.)

========================================================================REPLY: Thanks for your opinion and clarifications Steve. Bear in mind that Courtney wrote this before the “trick” and truncation was known. While I often defer to your superior knowledge on the subject of MBH98 it is my respectfully differing opinion that plotting the two datasets together (proxy reconstruction and instrumental temperatures) is indeed problematic and misleading in that both techniques have different samplings and sensitivities to temperature.

While Courtney’s complaint is most certainly incomplete in today’s perspective, we shouldn’t just say that plotting two dissimilar datasets on the same chart without proper caveats is a proper practice.

An analog to the spliced combination plot of Mann’s MBH98 graph in today’s climate arena might be this: suppose somebody wants to argue that hurricanes in the NH are becoming more frequent, and they are the more frequent now than in the last 1000 years.

One way to do this is to look at historical reports of hurricanes in literature, newspapers, magazines and other historical writings. These would be a “proxy” for the actual frequency of hurricanes in a given year. Suppose that the researcher was able to find enough reports to to make what looks like a viable dataset, but that instead of using historical writings to determine frequency of hurricanes in the 20th century, the actual record of named hurricanes (essentially observations) was used, such as this graph, which has a nice “hockey stick” shape implying that hurricanes frequency had increased dramatically in the late 20th century.

Arguably, that’s incomplete, showing only the Atlantic, but it’s the best I can do on short notice before I head to work this morning.

The combination of the two datasets, historical literature accounts, plus named storms in the north Atlantic might very well look much like Mann’s flat section of the hockey stick up to about 1925…mostly flat, maybe a slight increasing trend. It would likely look a lot like this graph you plotted in the CA discussion of Besonen et al 2008 (which has other issues independent of this discussion, I’m only using it as an example of what such a graph for this discussion might look like).

To the layman and even to some scientists, they might take such a construct of hurricane historical accounts (proxy) and named storms (observations) as being proof that hurricane frequency is indeed dramatically increasing in the 20th century.

But the issue is sampling and sensitivity. As you’ve pointed out many times, low sampling and/or selected sampling of proxies leads to spurious results when extrapolated to a larger scale (regional to global for example).

From a sensitivity standpoint, since human literature is less frequent as a we go back in time, we’d expect any dataset of historical hurricane accounts to have lower sensitivity to the actual number of hurricanes in any given year simply due to population density and the lack of communications. Many storms would go unreported.

So, for the purposes of my exercise, knowing that the two datasets for hurricane frequency would have different samplings and sensitivities to actual hurricane frequency in the NH, would it be proper to put these two datasets together into a single graph to argue that hurricane frequency in the NH is the “highest ever” at the endpoint of the graph?

From my viewpoint it would not be, because these two datasets have significantly different samplings and sensitivities to actual hurricanes. The layman doesn’t likely know this, and many of the media that might seize on such a graph probably wouldn’t note this as they often work from press releases. A press release about this hurricane frequency “paper” probably wouldn’t trumpet the fact that the two datasets are greatly dissimilar, and that as you go back in time, the sampling is less, and the sensitivity in the last part of the graph to hurricanes is dramatically higher than any part of the record.

And that’s why I see the splicing in MBH98 as another “trick”. Putting the two dissimilar datasets together implied they have equal sampling and sensitivity to temperature, when they clearly don’t, and the public and the media ran with that visual almost entirely without questioning it, because even though the colors were different, many newspapers back then didn’t reproduce in color, and many people simply take the graph’s “total shape” at face value, without realizing the differences between the two datasets.

(added, here is what a newsprint version of MBH98 might look like…note the dataset delineations disappear, laymen and politicians certainly wouldn’t be able to see beyond the total graph shape in B&W))

To me, that’s just as wrong as the truncation and the overlay issues.

Plotting/splicing two similar datasets of equal sampling and sensitivity in my mind is not an issue. Plotting two greatly dissimilar datasets with unequal sampling and sensitivity, is an issue.

It is interesting to see how the rationalization and self-deception of the AGW hype machine formed. This series of emails implies heavily that somewhere out there are older emails by Mann & gang that could give us more insights on how climate science was morphed into the focal point of a social madness.

More on “the Divergence Problem”, “Mike’s Nature Trick” and “Hide the Decline”:

It took eight years before the “Divergence Problem” was revealed, also in testimony. Mann grafted modern surface temperature data onto earlier tree ring temperature proxies to produce his upward-sloping “hockey stick” graph. Grafting together two different datasets is usually NOT good scientific practice.

Why did Mann do this? Because if he had exclusively used tree-ring data, the blade of the hockey stick, instead of showing very-scary warming in the last decades of the 20th Century, would have shown COOLING.

The correct scientific conclusion, in my opinion, is that using tree rings as a proxy for temperatures is not sufficiently accurate for the major conclusions that were drawn from the Mann studies.

Mann and the IPCC were clearly wrong about the hockey stick – the only remaining question is not one of error, it is one of fraud.

“The discrepancy between the forecast and the actual caught Cuffey’s eye and he asked D’Arrigo about it. She said “Oh that’s the “Divergence Problem”‘?. Cuffey wanted to know exactly how you could rely on tree ring proxies to register past warm periods if they weren’t picking up modern warmth “questions dear to the heart of any climateaudit reader”.”

I think they are putting the nail in their own hysterical coffin. They seek to suppress any dissent with what amounts to smoke and mirrors. Arguing against one thing at one time (MWP being global because not all parts warmed simultaneously), then arguing the current warm period (CWP) is universal when even their own data does not show universal warming.

And Richard was both kind and generous when he attributed their error to stupidity. It is clear that regardless of how the error was originated (stupidity or malfeasance), the “coverup” was pure malfeasance.

Steyn is going to have a field day with this type of shenanigans. And Steyn is now Mann’s tar baby. Mann could have quietly dropped the suit against the others before discovery took place, but when Steyn countered sued, it is no longer his choice.

People should apply “climate science” to football records. Use a 50 year ‘smoothing average’ for the win totals for the Alabama Crimson Tide from 1880-2006, then splice on their win totals using a 1 year ‘smoothing average’ from 2007-2014. Wala! A Hockey Stick is the result. Hockey Sticks are easy to create with any data when you use long “smoothing averages” for past data and short “smoothing averages” for the most recent data. People like Mann know this, but are too “evil” to care that they are distorting the truth.

This is a graphic from one of my recent articles here at WUWT. It graphically illustrates your apples and oranges points.

Paleo proxy is a very coarse sieve through which annual and decadal real world instrumental data easily falls through.

As can be seen, the instrumental temperature is all over the place. However the 50 year centred paleo material dies not even pick up the extreme cold of the LIA that were measured by the instruments. So of course splicing an instrumental record onto a paleo record is going to show a dramatic variation -as it has done in the past-for example see 1690 to 1740.

Phil Jones examined this period and came to the conclusion that natural variability was much greater than he had hitherto believed.
tonyb

I think that’s a good way to show it, tonyb, actually showing the overlap between the ‘apples’ and and the ‘oranges’. A suggestion, if I may: I think the meaning could be better conveyed to a lay audience by a simpler graph with fewer lines on it.

The original 1998 email was not the email linked and quoted above. Following that original email there was email discussion of the matter over several years but the ‘ClimateSkeptics Group’ archive does not include material from that far back. My 2000 email (which Mann disputes in the above quotation and link) was part of that email discussion.

However, the 2000 email made the same point as my original 1998 email; viz. the MBH98 hockey stick graph was improper because it spliced parts of two different data sets which could not be considered to be directly comparable (i.e. my ‘apples and oranges’ point which is clearly demonstrated by tonyb in this and the previous thread).

Figure 5 shows the best historic context but I am working on ways to graphically express glacier movements better, but unfortunately the latest cheque from Big Oil has not arrived yet and I have had to stand down my large research team :)

I have provided a direct reply to your question to me. This addendum is deliberately separated from the direct answer to ensure that nobody thinks it is an obfuscation.

I consider the ‘apples and oranges’ splice to be – by far – the most egregious fault of the MBH, Briffa, and et al. ‘hockey stick’ graphs. In my opinion, it is a worse fault than the hidden file of unused data. My reason for this opinion is as follows.

Parts of two different items were selected then spliced together and supplied to the scientific community with a view to providing a misleading scientific indication. Thus, in principle, the MBH ‘hockey sticks’ are the same scientific malpractice as the Piltdown Man.

The importance of the cited email from Mann is that it shows Mann wanted to suppress knowledge of the splicing and, therefore, as I said I am certain that the graphical malpractice of the ‘hockeystick’ was both witting and deliberate.

Err.
Why dilute the excellent attacks that mcintyre makes
On mann and his years of devotion by giving
Attention to courtney. Read the mail. And his claims about the mail.
Courtney is a distraction. He doesnt even make a cogent case.
Why. Why distract people from mcintyres cogent case
With this self aggrandizing crap from a third rate thinker.

I have a couple questions concerning the following copied (yeah, I know, that’s stating the obvious) portion of the above email from Doctor of Catastrophology, Michael Mann:

‘>This guys email is intentional deceipt. Our method, as you know, doesn’t
>include any “splicing of two different datasets”-this is a myth perptuated
>by Singer and his band of hired guns, who haven’t bothered to read our
>papers or the captions of the figures they like to mis-represent…’

Ok, Mike (is it ok if I call you Mike?-actually I could care less), can you graciously inform me what is an ‘intentional deceipt’? Now, I’m going to guess it’s different than an unintentional deceipt but since I don’t know what a deceipt is I can’t possibly know the difference between an intentional version and an unintentional version.

My second question, Mike, is, what is a myth that’s ‘perptuated’? Now, I’m guessing that it’s different than a myth that has not been perptuated but since I don’t have a sliver of a clue (since I’m not as smart as you guys) as to what perptuated actually means I obviously would not know the difference between the two.

Now, I realize, Mike, that the answers to my two (there’s two more I could ask but I won’t) foregoing questions may be above my simple ability to comprehend. And, if so, that would be a clear representation why multi-trillion dollar policy prescriptions (as Obama is currently engaged in) should be directed by your input and not mine, as a voter.

I am thinking of joining the alarmist side. There are just too many advantages. (1)You get large government grants to do “research”. (2)Your research is rubber stamped as “peer reviewed” whether it is crock or not. (3)You don’t have to show your complete methodologies. (4)You don’t have to give your supporting data. (5)If you get busted for doing a “Jerry Sandusky” on the data, there will be plenty of people who will have your back. (6)You can call detractors idiots and tools of the oil companies. For someone with a vivid out-of-the-box imagination like me, I just could have a lot of fun. Here is the title of my next climate paper, “How Climate Change Will Keep the Dallas Cowboys Out of the Super Bowl Indefinitely”. Or this paper, “How Climate Change May Prevent England from Ever Winning a World Cup Again”. Look for these papers soon in “Nature”. The alarmists peer review process is quite “stream-lined”>

Anthony, this post has numerous errors, none of which should be made by people interested in this topic. It is very disappointing to read such material.

In Mann et al 1998 (as Jean S first figured out), to calculate the smooth, Mann padded the MBH98 proxy reconstruction after its 1980 end point with instrumental data. Mann only used the smooth up to 1980. This was “Mike’s Nature trick”. Jean S observed the irony of this procedure, given Mann’s protestations against splicing, but the effect was relatively subtle. Contra Courtney’s conflation of “hide the decline aka Mike’s Nature trick, Mike’s Nature trick applied in Mann et al 1998 had NOTHING to do with “hide the decline” – which was an issue with the Briffa reconstruction.

Further, in Courtney’s 1998 email, he said:

The ‘hockey stick’ is obtained by splicing two different data sets. Similar data to the earlier data set exists for up to near the present and could have been spliced on, but this would not show the ‘hockey stick’ and was not done.

In the Mann et al 1998 diagram criticized in Courtney’s email, the proxy reconstruction and the observed data are distinguished by being plotted in different colors or different line type. In other words, they were not “spliced” in the diagram. In Courtney’s recent email to Anthony, he says that the above email “objected to the ‘hockeystick’ graph because the graph had an overlay of ‘thermometer’ data over the plotted ‘proxy’ data. This overlay was – I said – misleading because it was an ‘apples and oranges’ comparison: of course,” I, for one, would never have guessed that this was the criticism being made in the original email. While Mann’s response was marred by his all-too-typical invective, I can well understand why he rejected the allegation in Courtney’s email.

In Courtney’s recent covering email to Anthony, he now characterizes his earlier objection as an objection to proxy reconstructions being plotted on the same graph as observations as follows:

That email objected to the ‘hockeystick’ graph because the graph had an overlay of ‘thermometer’ data over the plotted ‘proxy’ data. This overlay was – I said – misleading because it was an ‘apples and oranges’ comparison: of course, I was not then aware of the ‘hide the decline’ (aka “Mike’s Nature trick”) issue.

While, as noted above, it would have been very difficult, if not impossible, for a contemporary reader to discern this meaning, this criticism is equally invalid in my opinion. I, for one, absolutely do not take issue with plotting a proxy reconstruction on the same scale as observations. I and others take issue with the “divergence problem” precisely because when one plots the Briffa reconstruction against observed temperatures in the 20th century, the two plots diverge. According to Courtney’s criticism, it would be invalid to do such a plot. This is absurd. This does not mean that I endorse the muddiness of Mann’s graphics or other defects. Only that I, for one, do not take issue with plotting a reconstruction and observations on the same scale. On the contrary, it is something that I’ve done on many occasions. As I said to Courtney at CA on this point, if I’m unconvinced on this issue, I can’t imagine why a judge or jury would be convinced.

In the WMO 1999 graphic, Jones deleted values of the Briffa reconstruction after 1950 or so (the decline), spliced instrumental temperature to the end of the record, smoothed the combination and plotted the spliced version (without peeling back to 1950 as in Mike’s Nature trick.)

Muir Russell criticized the truncation and splicing of data in WMO1999 as follows:

the figure supplied for the WMO Report was misleading in not describing that one of the series was truncated post 1960 for the figure, and in not being clear on the fact that proxy and instrumental data were spliced together.

However, he did not take issue with plotting proxy reconstructions and observations on the same graphic. (Not that Muir Russell would be definitive on this.)

======================================================================================================REPLY: Thanks for your opinion and clarifications Steve. Bear in mind that Courtney wrote this before the “trick” and truncation was known. While I often defer to your superior knowledge on the subject of MBH98 it is my respectfully differing opinion that plotting the two datasets together (proxy reconstruction and instrumental temperatures) is indeed problematic and misleading in that both techniques have different samplings and sensitivities to temperature.

While Courtney’s complaint is most certainly incomplete in today’s perspective, we shouldn’t just say that plotting two dissimilar datasets on the same chart without proper caveats is a proper practice.

An analog to the spliced combination plot of Mann’s MBH98 graph in today’s climate arena might be this: suppose somebody wants to argue that hurricanes in the NH are becoming more frequent, and they are the more frequent now than in the last 1000 years.

One way to do this is to look at historical reports of hurricanes in literature, newspapers, magazines and other historical writings. These would be a “proxy” for the actual frequency of hurricanes in a given year. Suppose that the researcher was able to find enough reports to to make what looks like a viable dataset, but that instead of using historical writings to determine frequency of hurricanes in the 20th century, the actual record of named hurricanes (essentially observations) was used, such as this graph, which has a nice “hockey stick” shape implying that hurricanes frequency had increased dramatically in the late 20th century.

Arguably, that’s incomplete, showing only the Atlantic, but it’s the best I can do on short notice before I head to work this morning.

The combination of the two datasets, historical literature accounts, plus named storms in the north Atlantic might very well look much like Mann’s flat section of the hockey stick up to about 1925…mostly flat, maybe a slight increasing trend. It would likely look a lot like this graph you plotted in the CA discussion of Besonen et al 2008 (which has other issues independent of this discussion, I’m only using it as an example of what such a graph for this discussion might look like).

To the layman and even to some scientists, they might take such a construct of hurricane historical accounts (proxy) and named storms (observations) as being proof that hurricane frequency is indeed dramatically increasing in the 20th century.

But the issue is sampling and sensitivity. As you’ve pointed out many times, low sampling and/or selected sampling of proxies leads to spurious results when extrapolated to a larger scale (regional to global for example).

From a sensitivity standpoint, since human literature is less frequent as a we go back in time, we’d expect any dataset of historical hurricane accounts to have lower sensitivity to the actual number of hurricanes in any given year simply due to population density and the lack of communications. Many storms would go unreported.

So, for the purposes of my exercise, knowing that the two datasets for hurricane frequency would have different samplings and sensitivities to actual hurricane frequency in the NH, would it be proper to put these two datasets together into a single graph to argue that hurricane frequency in the NH is the “highest ever” at the endpoint of the graph?

From my viewpoint it would not be, because these two datasets have significantly different samplings and sensitivities to actual hurricanes. The layman doesn’t likely know this, and many of the media that might seize on such a graph probably wouldn’t note this as they often work from press releases. A press release about this hurricane frequency “paper” probably wouldn’t trumpet the fact that the two datasets are greatly dissimilar, and that as you go back in time, the sampling is less, and the sensitivity in the last part of the graph to hurricanes is dramatically higher than any part of the record.

And that’s why I see the splicing in MBH98 as another “trick”. Putting the two dissimilar datasets together implied they have equal sampling and sensitivity to temperature, when they clearly don’t, and the public and the media ran with that visual almost entirely without questioning it, becuase even though the colors were different, many newspapers back then didn’t reproduce in color, and many people simply take the graph’s “total shape” at face value, without realizing the differences between the two datasets.

(added, here is what a newsprint version of MBH98 might look like…note the dataset delineations disappear, laymen and politicians certainly wouldn’t be able to see beyond the total graph shape in B&W))

To me, that’s just as wrong as the truncation and the overlay issues.

Plotting/splicing two similar datasets of equal sampling and sensitivity in my mind is not an issue. Plotting two greatly dissimilar datasets with unequal sampling and sensitivity, is an issue.

Mann: Our method, as you know, doesn’t include any “splicing of two different datasets”
============
Muir: not being clear on the fact that proxy and instrumental data were spliced together.
============

1. one of these statements must be false, by contradiction.
2. the authors had firsthand knowledge of the facts.
3. thus, the falsehood must be deliberate, with intent.

Ok, Mike (is it ok if I call you Mike?-actually I could care less), can you graciously inform me what is an ‘intentional deceipt’? Now, I’m going to guess it’s different than an unintentional deceipt but since I don’t know what a deceipt is I can’t possibly know the difference between an intentional version and an unintentional version.

Pot, kettle, black…

[Now, now – no more distracting arguments.
An intentional deceipt is obviously the automatically printed copy received from the teller (complete with name, address, and date of purchase) of the lie.
An unintentional deceipt happens when you rewrite over the carbon copy of the original deceipt. Mod]

If you had an argument other than your assertion of me being a “third-rate thinker” then you would have made it. So, to be vilified by the likes of you – and in the manner you have – is the highest acclaim which demonstrates I have a good case.

How low and stupid can you get? Pretty low and stupid judging by your comment. You entirely miss the point of the email exchange. It’s not the elegance of Richard’s criticism that matters here. It’s Mann’s ridiculous response. His denial does not weaken the evidence of deceit, it very plainly adds to it.

Further of interest in Mann’s response (beyond the projection of deceit) is the implied threat against any who criticize. Better not “go public” with that or there will be consequences. Not an empty threat at all, as subsequent events and other emails would show.

I guess I’d better put the words stupid and low into this post as well so it goes into moderation and doesn’t get out of sequence with my last one.

I refer you to the original publication of MBH98 and its caption which can be seen here.

The caption of the Figure says

Panels, (top to bottom) as follows. ‘NH’, reconstructed NH temperature series from 1610–1980, updated with instrumental data from 1981–95.

So, the Figure caption says the two data series were spliced and the Figure shows the splice.

In my email to Keller I wrote

The ‘hockey stick’ is obtained by splicing two different data sets. Similar data to the earlier data set exists for up to near the present and could have been spliced on, but this would not show the ‘hockey stick’ and was not done.

That is true.

But Mann’s reply to Keller says

This guys email is intentional deceipt. Our method, as you know, doesn’t include any “splicing of two different datasets”-this is a myth perptuated by Singer and his band of hired guns, who haven’t bothered to read our papers or the captions of the figures they like to mis-represent…

That is a series of falsehoods which can only be deliberate because Mann was the Lead Author of the paper which includes the ‘hockey stick’ graph.
I provided no “deceipt” (intentional or otherwise),
the Figure shows splicing of two different datasets,
the “caption” of the figure says the two data sets were spliced, and
the figure identifies which data is from which data set.

I think Steyn’s lawyers would find this series of falsehoods from Mann to be pertinent to legal consideration of Steyn’s description of the Figure which Mann disputes.

I don’t know if, as Richard says it was a dumb mistake, incompetent scientist, or intention deceit, but I suspect the latter. What it did do was show the world the underside of the CAGW rock, and thus caused many to enhance their skeptical POV for that I am grateful.
Once the deceit was exposed, a nominally intelligent person would have said oops,sorry, and craft a more undetectable lie.
I read recently that nearly 80% of those in congress took only the required minimum science credits. This could explain why perhaps our leaders are even more ignorant of climate that the average person . What easy targets for deceitful scientist.
After the cost of this farce in money and lives, the greatest damage is that done to all science in the perception of the public. As my father told me” One Aw S**t whips out a hundred atta boys” . We will all be tarnished by those who have prostituted science to this power grab, and I for one am very angry.

As Steven mentioned, this post seems rather confused. Mann by-and-large did not splice the instrumental record together with the proxy record (they are plotted with separate colors and lines in his figures). He also did not use the Briffa series whose decline was “hidden” on the WMO report cover.

Zeke Hausfather says:
May 12, 2014 at 8:25 am
As Steven mentioned, this post seems rather confused. Mann by-and-large did not splice the instrumental record together with the proxy record (they are plotted with separate colors and lines in his figures).
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

In such a manner as a casual observer would not have noticed the transition. It gave a false impression to all but the most astute and detailed of observers.

“Err.
Why dilute the excellent attacks that mcintyre makes
On mann and his years of devotion by giving
Attention to courtney. Read the mail. And his claims about the mail.
Courtney is a distraction. He doesnt even make a cogent case.
Why. Why distract people from mcintyres cogent case
With this self aggrandizing crap from a third rate thinker.”

This is a luddish and un-self aggrandizing remark. Also, Steve McIntyre’s hair-splitting response re splicing or non-splicing. Courtney copies the M98 figure caption which shows it to be a splice in Mann’s eyes and Courtney also makes the remark that had M98 continued the tree proxy, it would not have showed the hockey stick so they left it off.

Gentlemen, without the benefit of Climategate emails, do you not think it was a remarkable contemporary coup of M98 by Courtney? Don’t you think this early critique deserves a place in the story? After-all, even if there were some aspects (not revealed at the time) he basically criticized the very representation that became such a hallmark of McIntyre’s more punctilious dissection. It seems it is a bit like criticizing Newton in light of Einstein’s more fundamental erudition.

Richard, you are a pioneer in this battle for truth in climate science.

Zeke Hausfather;
But that may have had more to do with poor digital graphic creation techniques back in the dark ages of 1998 than any intend to deceive.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

That’s a pretty weak defense. Crayons still worked in 1998 for gawd’s sake. Had the full instrumental temperature record been plotted clearly and apart from the full proxy record, the divergence problem would have been starkly visible, and the trust worthiness of tree ring proxies cast into serious doubt. I ascribe to the notion that one should never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence. So you are free to take your pick, malice or incompetence. In this case though, malice must seriously be considered, and your defense does nothing to deter me from that conclusion.

I take exception to your misrepresentations in your post at May 12, 2014 at 7:14 am which is here.

Your post begins saying

Anth0ny, this post has numerous errors, none of which should be made by people interested in this topic. It is very disappointing to read such material.

I agree that your post does contain “numerous errors”.

The first such “error” is when you write

Contra Courtney’s conflation of “hide the decline aka Mike’s Nature trick, Mike’s Nature trick applied in Mann et al 1998 had NOTHING to do with “hide the decline” – which was an issue with the Briffa reconstruction

But I did NOT “conflate” those issues.
On the contrary, I said

In the same week as MBH98 was published I wrote an email on the ‘ClimateSkeptics’ circulation list. That email objected to the ‘hockeystick’ graph because the graph had an overlay of ‘thermometer’ data over the plotted ‘proxy’ data. This overlay was – I said – misleading because it was an ‘apples and oranges’ comparison: of course, I was not then aware of the ‘hide the decline’ (aka “Mike’s Nature trick”) issue.

I could not “conflate” something of which I was not aware.
However, as I said, my ‘apples and oranges’ point was later shown to have great importance when the ‘divergence problem’ became known.

You say

In the Mann et al 1998 diagram criticized in Courtney’s email, the proxy reconstruction and the observed data are distinguished by being plotted in different colors or different line type. In other words, they were not “spliced” in the diagram.

Yes, but so what?
As I have repeatedly said (for example here
Where I wrote

As you say

There is a splice but there is also use of a dotted line to indicate it.

So, the Mann deliberately lied when he wrote

This guys email is intentional deceipt. Our method, as you know, doesn’t include any “splicing of two different datasets”-this is a myth perptuated by Singer and his band of hired guns, who haven’t bothered to read our papers or the captions of the figures they like to mis-represent…<

All the spliced ‘thermometer’ data is above the ‘proxy’ data. This implies that the recent temperatures were higher than the temperatures at times of the proxy data. However, we now know that implication was false and resulted from difference between the two methods whose results were spliced (i.e. the ‘divergence problem’).

And please note that the addition in parenthesis does not “conflate” anything; it points to the fact that evidence later came to light which showed the implication was false for the reason which any unbiased person would have known to be a possibility.

But you say of that

While, as noted above, it would have been very difficult, if not impossible, for a contemporary reader to discern this meaning, this criticism is equally invalid in my opinion.

Say what!?
My original email to Keller said

The ‘hockey stick’ is obtained by splicing two different data sets. Similar data to the earlier data set exists for up to near the present and could have been spliced on, but this would not show the ‘hockey stick’ and was not done.

I fail to understand how you have failed to discern this meaning.

And you go on to say

I and others take issue with the “divergence problem” precisely because when one plots the Briffa reconstruction against observed temperatures in the 20th century, the two plots diverge. According to Courtney’s criticism, it would be invalid to do such a plot. This is absurd.

Yes, your misrepresentation of my statements is “absurd”.
You are conflating my objection to splicing ‘apples and oranges’ with the ‘divergence problem’. I have made no such conflation but you complain that I have while doing it yourself!

Of course different data sets can be plotted on the same graph for comparison.
BUT
That is NOT the same as taking selected parts of two data sets and splicing them together which is what MBH98 does and I complained about.

And you add

As I said to Courtney at CA on this point, if I’m unconvinced on this issue, I can’t imagine why a judge or jury would be convinced.

It is because you have not understood what I have written and you have asserted I have written other things.

A judge or jury would see the clear falsehood stated by Mann in his email quoted above. The two data sets were spliced and he wrote that the method did not splice them. This goes to the crux of Mann’s credibility about the method which generated the graph: why did Mann lie about the method if the method he did use could be defended by telling the truth?

You follow that with irrelevance about the ‘divergence problem’ and the work of Briffa before concluding

Yes, you have done – and you continue to do – much good work on this subject: I have often cited it. But the interests of others in the subject are not irrelevant because they predate your work and/or because they address issues other than those of your work.

Pros: ??
Cons: Diminishes your point, makes it easier to dismiss / ignore, and weakens your overall brand. I don’t have to admit to being a silent little lamb, I can ignore you because of the baggage.
Course, I don’t rate as a thinker at all, so perhaps the impact is insignificant.

There appears to be some manifestations of behind the scenes tension in this thread.
Courtney’s points seem to be pretty well documented and straight forward: Mann was splicing two very different records and claiming the resulting over lays are valid to draw conclusions from. These points do not seem to be that far removed from what Mosher/McIntyre are saying. Nor does Courtney seem to be making claims wildly divergent from the record.
Yet there is an antagonism between the various parties I find interesting. Perhaps a way to see some good in this is that thension prevents an echo chamber from forming, which is fundamental to the health of any honest inquiry.

Zeke and others, see my inline reply to McIntyre in his comment. Note the Black and White version of MBH98 graph. Could anybody delineate that they were dissimilar datasets from newsprint of that era? The removal of color effectively makes a splice.

Mosher’s post did not “ruffle my feathers”.
I did not know of Mann’s email until it was released as part of climategate. But somebody thought it was of sufficient interest to save, to collate and to leak as part of climategate.

Clearly, Mosher thinks Mann’s email is of sufficient importance for him to try to deflect from consideration of it. As I said, my decision to draw attention to Mann’s email was confirmed as being right by Mosher’s silly post.

“And Richard was both kind and generous when he attributed their error to stupidity. It is clear that regardless of how the error was originated (stupidity or malfeasance), the “coverup” was pure malfeasance.”

Well said! The question of what people knew and when they knew it is important. The response by Mann is clear: he knew what he did, he did it deliberately and knowingly and with malice of forethought – malice against the true temperature record.

The number of people who have covered up since: looks like there was someone inside Science who was a ‘team member’. That person should be identified to see what articles they approved and which they spiked in those days in order to support the a graph they seem to have known was faked. It is unbelievable that they didn’t know about it.

To Anthony and moderators: Since Steve M’s comment adds considerable “meat” to Richard’s article, perhaps an “Updated” link in the article could point to the McIntyre comment and responses to it by Anthony and Richard.

‘Courtney’s points seem to be pretty well documented and straight forward: Mann was splicing two very different records and claiming the resulting over lays are valid to draw conclusions from. These points do not seem to be that far removed from what Mosher/McIntyre are saying. Nor does Courtney seem to be making claims wildly divergent from the record.
Yet there is an antagonism between the various parties I find interesting. Perhaps a way to see some good in this is that the tension prevents an echo chamber from forming, which is fundamental to the health of any honest inquiry.’

This seems a reasonable summation and Anthony has amplified it. Quite why Mosh thought that level of unpleasantness he displayed was necessary was beyond me. He is better than this and his increasing levels of snark make me uncomfortable.

“Given his response was written in 2000 about a criticism written in 1998 about a paper published in 1998 I am not clear on the reference to “years ago”.”

Please remind me: exactly when was this paper published? It was included in the IPCC report improperly on the promise that I was going to be published very soon, which turned out not to be the case, not so? They were fishing around for someone willing to say they would print it late in ’97 or early ’98.

In short it was called MBH98 before it was published, and caught up later. Was it really in print in ’98?

Sincere thanks for your ‘hurricane illustration’ with associated graphs. People need an ability to understand what I am saying if they are to reach valid agreement or valid disagreement with my statemernts.

I was starting to think only tonyb understood my point about dis-similar methods providing ‘apples and oranges’ data sets. The analogy of your ‘hurricane illustration’ provides an elegant explanation without need to use maths. And I ask all who are having difficulty understanding my point to please read your analogy.

HELP! Definitely off topic, but I am in a battle with the editor of the local Gannet paper. I responded to a letter headlined ‘Deniers are Motivated by Money” (and used AR5 as his reference for our “errors”). The editor cut off the last sentence of EACH of my paragraphs (presumably for brevity) which eliminated each of my summary points!
My very last paragraph, the money one :), said skeptics believe in the Scientific Method…. …..not appeals to authority, consensus, ….nor ad hominems (like the label “denier” used to associate skeptics with ignorant holocaust deniers). The phrase in parenthesis was snipped.
I will respond with a very short letter reasserting the deleted portions of my letter as self standing bullet points.
The help I need is documenting the origin of the term global warming “denier”. I am aware of the Ellen Goodman Boston Globe editorial which popularized the term (11/28/07) but I believe there was an earlier reference by a former Al Gore PR man who wrote an article in (maybe) the Atlantic specifically on how to win the communications war on global warming and channeling Saul Alinsky’s advice to demonize the enemy; the first to suggest the tactic of associating skeptics with Holocaust deniers.
That person later contributed to An Inconvenient Truth. Name begins with a “G”?
Did I dream this one (of course Google is no help)?
(Ironically, my letter appeared directly below a 5 panel cartoon displaying how skeptics are incapable of listening to facts or reason.)

Mann did not attend college as an earth/climate/physical scientist. He attended as a Mathematician. He only became engaged in “climate” at the end of his education by an activist mentor. The hockeystick paper was his first public venture into the climate debate. Is that why the terminology and methods seem so UN scientific method?

Yes, the two different data sets were clearly shown in two different colors. The problem is that by overlaying them in a point where they “match up”, and then continuing on with only ONE of the sets, it automatically leads the viewer to assume that the FIRST data set either ENDED at that moment, OR that it continued to match the second data after that, so that essentially, the SECOND set “picks up where the last one left off”. Using the word “updated” in the caption to the original chart is also meant to lead the viewer to conclude that the second data set is just a newer, better, reflection of the first set.

If the first data had continued on, it would not have shown a hockeystick. The second data set didn’t go back far enough to be reliable. It was a match made in heaven ONLY for someone with an agenda, and the fact that they “matched” for only a split second in scientific time, was all they needed to shove this chart, this newborn “climate scientist”, and the AGW theory to the forefront of the climate debate.

That was 16 years ago. NOW we know. NOW we have better records, more accurate proxies, more detailed studies. That Mann is still defending a flawed, disproven, illogical paper indicates he is either completely incompetent, deluded, or so invested in a known lie that he simply cannot let go. Maybe its money. Maybe its ego. Or maybe he (and his groupies) know if they fess up, the whole argument falls apart. It would be a death blow to the movement. A movement they very much believe in. All they have to do is hang on long enough for conclusive proof (they firmly believe will arrive any day now) to show up and then they can just wave off the Hockey Stick as “what we believed then..that has been proven to be true anyways by something else.” Maybe he views that as his burden to carry…maybe hes been threatened not to put it down.

They believe they are saving the world. There is no more noble a cause! There is no more urgent a message! Everyone who does not join them is either suicidal or genocidal. No tool or lie can be viewed in a negative light if it saves us all!

Yes, the two different data sets were clearly shown in two different colors. The problem is that by overlaying them in a point where they “match up”, and then continuing on with only ONE of the sets, it automatically leads the viewer to assume that the FIRST data set either ENDED at that moment, OR that it continued to match the second data after that, so that essentially, the SECOND set “picks up where the last one left off”

Or that he was merely “highlighting” the blade. Without a legend, what the readers were to think was suggestive of the narrative, which did not mention the grafting.

Steven Mosher works with a proven liar, Richard Muller, paid by the Koch brothers no less. Muller created headline news about being a skeptic who bashed Mann but then suddenly was enlightened to become an climate model supporter, despite old quotes that showed Muller never was a skeptic whatsoever, but he had in fact resigned from the Sierra Club in the 1980s for their lack of support of low emissions nuclear power. What obviously happened was that Muller was envious of Mann’s fame and stepped in with his own hockey stick as he simultaneously bashed Mann in seminars, trying to steal Mann’s thunder and start tapping the funding (and fame) well. So the Berkeley Earth crew have a vested interest in a surgical and sealed Mann bashing narrative, as they hope their highly tweak-able auto slicing and dicing black box of adjustments will garner more support of emergency level funding in climate “science” minus all that *former* controversy.

One more note….Mann seems to swim in a very small pool that contains an inordinate number of psychology students/professors/”experts”. People known to prey on, manipulate the “science” and use fear and labeling to control the debate. Does that amuse, alarm, or bother anyone else or is it just me wondering why someone whose work is so solid that it must be augmented with social manipulation?

“I and others take issue with the “divergence problem” precisely because when one plots the Briffa reconstruction against observed temperatures in the 20th century, the two plots diverge.”

Absolutely, Mr. McIntyre. But please add the additional information that Briffa had discovered that his evidence had turned against him and, as a genuine scientist, he had a duty to report that indisputable fact. Perhaps the most important finding of Briffa’s work was that the tree ring proxies in question are not reliable proxies for temperature.

It’s impossible for me to see the hockey stick graph as anything other than intentional.
Michael Mann obviously knew how it would be received and what the contrast was to the countless, much different historical accounts of the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age that existed before the hockey stick.

That is just repeating what is well known. After warming of the 1980’s/90’s, the effect of doing this, could almost be justified by some based on empirical data from thermometers that confirmed global warming was happening during those 2 decades.

Since that warming has stalled, however global temperatures have been unable to keep up with the end of the hockey stick. So, with time, the hockey stick will look less and less like a hockey stick, as more and more thermometer readings get greater and greater weight.

In essence, this disparity from the shape the hockey stick took initially and the shape that is being carved out now, exposes the errors.
The hockey stick graph was all above unprecedented, upward accelerating temperatures. Unprecedented because of it wiped out previous natural temperature deviations.

The value that was placed on it was proportional to the weight it was given with respect to a powerful indicator for the direction of global temperatures in a future world with increasing greenhouse gases.

However, as time marches on and global temperatures diverge more and more from the hockey stick shape and more and more from global climate models using mathematical equations to represent the physics of a hockey stick based atmosphere, the value of the hockey stick graph as a tool for one side making its case for unprecedented warming rates continues to weaken.

In a world where global temperatures have violated hockey stick shaped warming for a significant period, it is also easier to accept the lack of authentic science that originally went into creating it.

As always, truth/theories in science are either validated or falsified by how they stand up in the real world.

There has been no hockey stick warming for over 15 years now with CO2 levels going higher. Objective scientists would not be stating “the science is settled” “the debate is over” referring to a theory based on hockey stick warming.
If anything, it’s hard not to conclude that hockey stick warming has been falsified. An El Nino this year and next, causing new highs in global temps would at best, show less than hockey stick warming.
Should a new trend that breaks out of the 15 year global temperature pause and continues for the rest of this decade occur, then I for one, will adjust my ideas regarding the effects of increasing CO2 on global temperatures. Why not wait that long? Why is it that one side must act NOW?

The reason for Obama to go into a “full court press” with the rhetoric and push for aggressive, costly and economy stifling regulations at a time when his science is being falsified, has to do with the time table of his current term.

It will take 2 years to get the regulations he plans to unveil in June in place. He has less than 3 years left in office. Also, the longer he/they wait, the less the global temperature graph looks like a hockey stick. He is also losing support as weather events like severe Winters and high heating bills sink into brainwashed minds.

It’s the fact that Mann’s black and white dotted line exactly *lines* *up* with the end of the proxy data that represents the act of splicing, no matter how it is represented graphically. This automatically means any miscalibration is ignored and the full rise of the instrumental data from 1980 is added with much less averaging and smoothing out than the proxy data experiences.

Steve McIntyre asserted: “I and others take issue with the “divergence problem” precisely because when one plots the Briffa reconstruction against observed temperatures in the 20th century, the two plots diverge.”

…while Steven Goddard points out that in fact if you use pre-alarm era temperature plots, there *is* no divergence problem, since those plots do show cooling, the likes of which create a new ice age scare:

Anthony, I do not regard (and do not know of any specialist) who would regard “plotting the two datasets (proxy reconstruction and instrumental temperatures)… with different samplings and sensitivities to temperature” on the same diagram but with different colors or line types as being equivalent to or a form of “splicing” the two datasets. If one wants to argue against the legitimacy of this form of diagram (and I am skeptical of the argument), then one shouldn’t use the term “splicing” if you’re objecting to plotting on the same scale.

Your first hurricane diagram shows two datasets that were spliced together. SImilarly the WMO 1999 diagram showed two datasets that were spliced together. That’s not the case with Mann’s 1998 diagram. It is not valid to adduce (Muir Russell) criticisms of an actual spliced diagram as support for prior criticism of a diagram which was not “spliced”. (Anthony, your point that the distinction could be lost in low-resolution diagrams is true enough, but not a valid criticism of the original article.)

Since the accusation as formulated in Courtney’s letter was incorrect, this gave Mann an opportunity to easily point out to Chick Keller that he hadn’t “spliced” the datasets in the diagram, but had graphically distinguished them.

If someone wanted to criticize PLOTTING a reconstruction and observations on the same diagram, then they should phrased their criticism precisely and correctly. Accusing Mann of something different – “splicing” datasets – gave Mann an easy out. Ironically, one can validly accuse Mann in Mann et al 2008 of splicing proxy and observed data, as he did this in Mann et al 2008. It seems foolish to me to instead make an untrue accusation about MBH98.

While I understand the frustration of many readers, I re-emphasize that precision of language is important.

Look at how many investigations were led astray by people like you making false claims, tangential claims, trivial claims. You want to know why the climategate investigations failed
to look at the hard questions? Simple, because people who never read the mails claimed they were about the temperature record. That allowed investigators to claim that the “issues” had been investigated.

You dont understand manns work, you dont understand the real problems. You drag out an old mail that isnt even relevant to the issues at hand. As Steve has argued Stynes lawyers will ignore anything you write. You have no history of writing on these issues, you have no familiarity with the data or the methods.

Now, anyone who wants to divert attention from the real issues ( which mcintyre raises ) can do so easily by focusing on your buffoonery. Go post at Goddards.

If we start ignoring third-rate thinkers we have to include you. Your great fault is you write as if you had solid knowledge of the sign and magnitude of the feedbacks regards downlevel radiation from CO2. You don’t know, you can’t know, nobody has calculated it, nobody can calculate it because all the components are not known and or understood. The very presumption of it is denied by nature and recorded in the observed data. Get past that before you feel too comfortable outing “third-rate thinkers”.

Let me illustrate my point with an example – and this was the sort of example that I was familiar with when I started in this field. From time to time, economists and business analysts construct models purporting to “explain” or “predict” the stock market, but very few/none work out of sample. If Ferson or some such economist did a plot in which their “reconstruction” was compared to observations, no one would criticize them for this. Indeed, I can’t imagine any such criticism being treated as anything other than a joke.

This doesn’t entail belief in or acceptance of the model. Only that no one reasonably takes issue with a plot comparing observations to “estimates” or with an analysis of the residuals. This is what statisticians do. It’s impossible to do statistics without analysing residuals.

NikFromNYC says:
May 12, 2014 at 10:40 am
It’s the fact that Mann’s black and white dotted line exactly *lines* *up* with the end of the proxy data that represents the act of splicing, no matter how it is represented graphically.

Exactly. I was about to make the same point myself, viz, Why does using different colours mean that joining up curves is not “splicing”? (Does this mean that if I had two pieces of real rope of different colour I couldn’t splice them?)

Plus, there are plenty of reproductions of this curve that don’t use different colours.

I leave it to Anth0ny to answer the points concerning his arguments in your post at May 12, 2014 at 11:26 am.

However, you conclude that post saying

If someone wanted to criticize PLOTTING a reconstruction and observations on the same diagram, then they should phrased their criticism precisely and correctly. Accusing Mann of something different – “splicing” datasets – gave Mann an easy out. Ironically, one can validly accuse Mann in Mann et al 2008 of splicing proxy and observed data, as he did this in Mann et al 2008. It seems foolish to me to instead make an untrue accusation about MBH98.

While I understand the frustration of many readers, I re-emphasize that precision of language is important.

I agree that “precision of language is important” and my “language” was precise in my post addressed to you at May 12, 2014 at 8:58 am where I wrote

Of course different data sets can be plotted on the same graph for comparison.
BUT
That is NOT the same as taking selected parts of two data sets and splicing them together which is what MBH98 does and I complained about.

Mann did NOT plot the data sets: he plotted selected parts of the data sets and as NikFromNYC says at May 12, 2014 at 10:40 am

It’s the fact that Mann’s black and white dotted line exactly *lines* *up* with the end of the proxy data that represents the act of splicing, no matter how it is represented graphically.

Anybody who looks at the published MBH98 graph can see that it splices the selected parts of the data sets: the original published graph can be seen here.

So, I was merely stating fact when I wrote to Keller

The ‘hockey stick’ is obtained by splicing two different data sets. Similar data to the earlier data set exists for up to near the present and could have been spliced on, but this would not show the ‘hockey stick’ and was not done.

And (as I explained in this thread at May 12, 2014 at 7:56 am to ferdberple and John Who): Mann was stating a series of blatant falsehoods when he wrote to Keller

Our method, as you know, doesn’t include any “splicing of two different datasets”-this is a myth perpetuated >by Singer and his band of hired guns, who haven’t bothered to read our papers or the captions of the figures they like to mis-represent…

In my opinion he lied because he understood the magnitude of what he had done. As I said in my post at May 12, 2014 at 6:21 am

I consider the ‘apples and oranges’ splice to be – by far – the most egregious fault of the MBH, Briffa, and et al. ‘hockey stick’ graphs. In my opinion, it is a worse fault than the hidden file of unused data. My reason for this opinion is as follows.

Parts of two different items were selected then spliced together and supplied to the scientific community with a view to providing a misleading scientific indication. Thus, in principle, the MBH ‘hockey sticks’ are the same scientific malpractice as the Piltdown Man.

The importance of the cited email from Mann is that it shows Mann wanted to suppress knowledge of the splicing and, therefore, as I said. I am certain that the graphical malpractice of the ‘hockeystick’ was both witting and deliberate

Anthony asked: “What would be a more precise word for what occurred in MBH98?”

There are a huge number of MBH issues and not quickly summarized. The largest problem – and we didn’t articulate this at the time though it is latent – is the lack of consistency between proxies. The “proxies” are not temperature plus red noise -as required in Mannian and similar models. They are something else.

Otherwise, the most serious issues in MBH98 remain the issues raised in our 2005 articles (especially the EE article): overfitting in the calibration period; falsely claiming “statistical skill” without disclosing adverse verification statistics; falsely claiming “robustness” to presence/absence of dendro proxies while knowing that the reconstruction was not robust to bristlecones; lack of forthright disclosure that the HS shape derived from proxies (strip bark bristlecone) known to be problematic; questionable use of principal components methodology, including still undisclosed retention protocols; the arbitrary Mannkovitch adjustment; the still unknown confidence interval procedure of MBH99;…

In our 2005 articles, we pointed out that overfitted models typically failed out of sample. In tailored financial models, Ferson pointed out that out-of-sample testing tended to produce new “predictors” as old ones failed. In one of my earliest Op Eds, I urged that the proxy network be brought up to date. By this, I didn’t mean the development of new proxies, but bringing networks like MBH up to date. Have bristlecone ring widths continue to go to the stratosphere? Have Gaspe ring widths gone to the stratosphere? In the case of Gaspe, we know that an update was attempted and the results contradicted Hockey Stickness and were withheld. This was pointed out in early CA posts.

Of all people, I’ve been most skeptical of the likelihood of the Mann proxy network performing out of sample. Instead what we’ve seen is more or less what we predicted in 2005. As old proxies fail to live up out of sample, new “predictors” come into fashion: things like Kaufman’s varves.

There remains a lot to discuss. But “splicing” in MBH isn’t on the list.

There are several assertions and no information in your post at May 12, 2014 at 11:35 am.

I knew nothing of the above article until I saw it. This thread exists because Anth0ny saw my post on another thread, he copied it plus its link, then he wrote commentary on it, and he provided all that as the above article. You accuse me of “buffoonery” because of that: clearly, your arrogance and stupidity are unbounded.

You say of me

You dont understand manns work, you dont understand the real problems. You drag out an old mail that isnt even relevant to the issues at hand. As Steve has argued Stynes lawyers will ignore anything you write. You have no history of writing on these issues, you have no familiarity with the data or the methods.

Clearly, I “understand manns work” better than you and you do not state any “real problems” (although think you are one such).

I linked to a climategate email which is so not “relevant to the issues at hand” that we have this thread, and it frightens you so much that you are trying to deflect discussion it.

Whatever Steve thinks, Steyn’s lawyers will decide whether Mann having lied about MBH98 is pertinent to their case.

As the climategate email shows, I have a “history of writing on these issues” based on my “familiarity with the data” and “the methods” which goes back to 1998.

Please desist from making your silly and disruptive posts which say much about you but nothing about me.

It seems that some people want to discuss other matters than the climategate email because they think there are other matters which have more importance concerning faults with MBH98 and subsequent ‘hockey stick’ graphs.

Perhaps some of those other matters do have more importance and perhaps they don’t: their relative importance is a matter of opinion.

What can be said is that the public obtain their information on such things from the MSM. And the MSM will not get excited about e.g. “overfitted models typically failed out of sample”. But the MSM can both understand and be interested in Michael Mann having lied about the method which produces his ‘hockey sticks’.

For that reason if for no other, I agree with whomever collated and released the climategate emails and decided the email quoted in the above article has sufficient importance to be included.

” Ironically, one can validly accuse Mann in Mann et al 2008 of splicing proxy and observed data, as he did this in Mann et al 2008. It seems foolish to me to instead make an untrue accusation about MBH98.”

I take your point on the precision of language. There is another test. I saw the chart. I was led to believe that the proxy data ended and that temperature data was pasted on top to continue it to the present time (in 1997). I was in fact misled because the proxy data set available was truncated in order to hide its actual values. The chart misled members of the public like me.

People say (including here) that later data was spliced onto the former proxy data. It would be more correct to say that the truest description of the chart is one of measured temperatures with proxy data spliced onto it, identified by a different colour. The intention of the chart, and the truncation, and the title and notes was to have the reader consider the real temperature data to be a true representation of reality, and for the proxy data to be a good representation of reality going ‘back in time’. But the majority of the chart is not a true reflection of temperature and the author knew that so he truncated a select portion the data to hide its general inappropriateness.

We now know the measurements were real, but the proxy was not. How then to make them ‘fit’? By cutting off the divergent recent proxy data and having them meet at that point where they agreed. Mann did not do that to inform the public. He sought to hide the ‘real information’ which as pointed out above was to have most people think that tree rings are a reasonable proxy for temperature because ‘they fit’ so well. Tree rings are apparently not a reasonable proxy for temperature and he sought to conceal his discovery which is an attack on science.

It is a temperature chart electronically glued to a bad temperature proxy the author knew to be bad (because they didn’t match in the 20th century). That is explanation enough for me.

It is a bit difficult to wade through the strident rhetoric which appears to be flowing. I’m not sure why the discussion has to be so overwrought. My takeaway is this:

Whether you would call what Mann did “splicing” or not seems to be a bit of a quibble. But, Steve McIntyre’s point seems to be that Mann can use that subjectivity as a means to derail criticism, and it is better to use precise, universally agreed upon descriptors to prosecute the case against him.

That seems reasonable enough, though I suspect there are no strictly objective terms which cannot be twisted by Mann, and that twisted rationalization seized upon by his peanut gallery as a means of thwarting the justice he is due.

From that perspective, an easily grasped term like “spliced” may better serve. Rather than letting his side dictate the terms of the discussion, perhaps we should insist that what he did was, indeed, a splice, and allow no ifs, ands, or buts about it. The argument over that could grow heated, and become a focal point of the debate, pulling more people in to view it.

There is no bad publicity. I think the majority of people seeing what was done would readily agree that it is, by any practical measure, a splice.

Mann Misrepresents the EPA – Part 1 (Steve McIntyre posted at CA on May 9, 2014 at 2:32 PM)

Mann and misrepresentations (Posted on May 9, 2014 by Anthony Watts)

– – – – – – – – –

richardscourtney,

From your comments in the two blog posts referenced above and in this post, I take your position to be as follows:

1. You are strictly focused on MBH98 in both your 2000 email and in your criticism of Mann’s comments about that email of yours.

2. You maintain there is a serious violation of principle in the scientific process used in MBH98 which (in your words) is their graphical comparison / presentation and then evaluation of “apples and oranges”; where you find the “apples and oranges” to be thermometer data and temperature proxy data.

3. You maintain #2 above was (in your words) “graphical malpractice of the ‘hockeystick’” and it “was both witting and deliberate”.

In item #2, it is not a fundamental epistemic issue when different datasets are plotted in the same chart if they are clearly labeled as being different; MBH did label them. In item #2 there is an epistemic issue in use of colloquial analogies like your use of “apples and oranges” instead of just using the specific words and entities of the climate that one is talking about; such analogies are scientifically unprofessional and are misleading.

As to item #3, it does not follow from #2. Be that as it may, however, I think that Mann (when he was a TAR lead author) does appear to totally embrace the purpose of the IPCC assessment process which is to myopically prove significant AGW from fossil fuel instead of just studying the Earth Atmosphere System objectively and letting reality take us observationally where it will to new theories.

Postscript => Richard, you and I might agree on one thing. That might be that Mann is focused primarily on creating a modern climate focused mythology of good and evil by mimicking climate science where the body of his problematic research is a means to that myth building end.

One point for Mann’s chart, is that if I take the older HadCRUT3 global average temperature prior to the 2012 major up-adjustment, and I extend the instrumental record back before 1980 so it actually overlaps with the proxy plot, there is a nearly perfect correlation, though my scaling is approximate:

I made this expecting to find a mismatch worthy of a chuckle, but instead found why bad math be damned, it *looks* like a winner and certainly Mann isn’t hiding a gross mismatch between the two different types of data after all, which technicalities and terminology aside, would have been the real scandal.

One point for Mann’s chart, is that if I take the older HadCRUT3 global average temperature prior to the 2012 major up-adjustment, and I extend the instrumental record back before 1980 so it actually overlaps with the proxy plot, there is a nearly perfect correlation,

Yes, the proxy data sets were selected to do that using the (ridiculous) assumption that the proxy values which did that would have done the same previously and subsequently.

“Year by year data from tree rings, corals, ice cores and historical data” That particular label bothers me because data from corals and ice cores (at least) probably is yearly by any stretch. Also, how do they relate a width of something like a tree ring to a particular temperature. Seems to be pretty arbitrary to to assign a specific temp to any one of these things to even attempt to tie the end of the proxy data to the beginning of the temperature data.

And why did the temperature data begin in the early 1900s? Fairly reliable temperature, although not from extensive sites, data was being accumulated around the world before then.

Steve McIntyre says: May 12, 2014 at 11:43 am
[i] no one reasonably takes issue with a plot comparing observations to “estimates” or with an analysis of the residuals. This is what statisticians do. [/i]

I have 2 issues with this:
1) are we comparing “results” (outputs) of a model with observations, or are we comparing two observation sets (albeit one “reconstructed”)?
2) when using a graph to compare two time series , wouldn’t it be (more) appropriate to show only the common time interval?

richardscourtney says:
May 12, 2014 at 8:58 am
“Say what!?
My original email to Keller said

The ‘hockey stick’ is obtained by splicing two different data sets. Similar data to the earlier data set exists for up to near the present and could have been spliced on, but this would not show the ‘hockey stick’ and was not done.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Has anyone produced a graph that shows what the correct, non spliced data would have looked like side by side the splice?

I have tried to answer points because the thread derived from a post I had made on a previous thread. But if my contributions are “annoying” then they are not useful so I will withdraw from the thread.

However, I trust that everybody will recognise my withdrawal is not any capitulation to any post(s) of Mosher and/or Whitman.

Steven Mosher says:
May 12, 2014 at 6:45 am
“Err.
Why dilute the excellent attacks that mcintyre makes
On mann and his years of devotion by giving
Attention to courtney. Read the mail. And his claims about the mail.
Courtney is a distraction. He doesnt even make a cogent case.
Why. Why distract people from mcintyres cogent case
With this self aggrandizing crap from a third rate thinker.”

So, what are you implying? It seems to me that you are telling Anthony that when Steve is making a major post at his site then Anthony should not permit a post on the topic at WUWT. How do I have that wrong? I dare say that your suggestion will not set well with Anthony. And I greatly hope that your suggestion is not an expression of your character.

I think a number of folks are falsely conflating the modern divergence in the Briffa reconstruction with what was plotted in MBH 98. I could be wrong (paleo reconstructions really aren’t my thing), but I though that the proxy data plotted in MBH 98 by and large ended where most of the proxy data ended, and modern divergent data was not suppressed.

“Anthony asked: “What would be a more precise word for what occurred in MBH98?”

There are a huge number of MBH issues and not quickly summarized. The largest problem – and we didn’t articulate this at the time though it is latent – is the lack of consistency between proxies. The “proxies” are not temperature plus red noise -as required in Mannian and similar models. They are something else.

It is interesting the criticism of R.Courtney by McIntyre and Mosher as it pertains to his capabilities vis a vis the subject of climate science, M. Mann’s methods, and the like- indeed one could say they believe him to be an interloper, now basking in the glow of McIntyre’s and Mosher’s achievements. Before we go too far down that path, let us look at a part of Richard’s credentials on the subject:

“….He is an expert peer reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and in November 1997 (!!!! GP) chaired the Plenary Session of the Climate Conference in Bonn. In June 2000 he was one of 15 scientists invited from around the world to give a briefing on climate change at the US Congress in Washington DC, and he then chaired one of the three briefing sessions.

His achievements have been recognized by The UK’s Royal Society for Arts and Commerce, PZZK (the management association of Poland’s mining industry), and The British Association for the Advancement of Science. Having been the contributing technical editor of CoalTrans International, he is now on the editorial board of Energy & Environment. He is a founding member of the European Science and Environment Forum (ESEF).”

Hmmm editorial board of EE where McIntyre’s 2005 paper was published; involved with IPCC – chaired the 1997 Plenary Session….an invited scientist to brief the US Congress in June 2000…. This man is not an interloper and to have resisted temptations with this long an association with the IPCC….

Gentlemen, I provide this snippet to elevate the discussion a bit and quieten egos. How many of Richard’s detractors have been engaging in the debate for almost 20 yrs? Half that time? I’m sure not that many. How many who had been involved with the IPPC at length were not seduced into the cause. Few. Like you who fight the good fight, Richard’s integrity in battle on the lonely side of the debate is uncompromised. He was a pioneer when I thought the first real opposition began less than a decade ago.

Number one, you introduced an irrelevancy. It does not matter where most of the proxy data ended.

Number two, the proxy data from roughly 1962 to 1998 could not be understood as supporting the hypothesis of warming. My recollection might be incorrect, but I believe that Briffa was the person responsible for those who actually collected the data. Briffa had nearly forty years of data that ran against the hypothesis of warming. Probably the most important finding of his work is that the variety of tree rings in question are not reliable proxies for temperature. He had a duty to publish those facts, as did Mann and the rest of the team.

I have answered […] your post at May 12, 2014 at 1:15 pm. Read my post at May 12, 2014 at 12:01 pm.

[. . .]

Richard

– – – – – – – – – – –

richardscourtney,

I am sincerely sorry to hear of your voluntary withdrawal from the thread which you announced in your comment to our host on May 12, 2014 at 12:01 pm.

I find no substance to your claim to have pre-addressed in your comment to Steve McIntyre all of my following points: my general epistemic observations on a MBH98 graphic; my critique of your use of analogy in a scientific discussions; and my finding of no logic in your very specific attribution of graphic ‘malpractice’ on the subject MBH98 graph.

To other commenters who are in essential concordance with richardscourtney’s positions – Given richardscourtney’s withdrawal, can one of you address his claim.

It matters where the proxy data ended if folks are accusing Mann et al of using “splicing” to suppress divergent proxy data. Briffa was not an author of MBH 98, and as far as I know his tree ring data was not used in Mann’s reconstruction. Hence my statement that people are conflating Briffa and the divergence problem with the MBH 98 hockeystick, when they are in fact two different things.

richardscourtney says:May 12, 2014 at 8:58 am
Steve McIntyre says:May 12, 2014 at 11:26 am
Anthony Watts says:May 12, 2014 at 11:29 am
“Thanks Steve, your point is better understood now. What would be a more precise word for what occurred in MBH98?”

splice [splahys]
verb (used with object), spliced, splic·ing.
1.to join together or unite (two ropes or parts of a rope) by the interweaving of strands.
2.to unite (timbers, spars, or the like) by overlapping and binding their ends.
3.to unite (film, magnetic tape, or the like) by butting and cementing.
4.to join or unite.
5.Genetics. to join (segments of DNA or RNA) together.

Since the data sets are not interwoven or overlapped, clearly def 1 & 2 do not apply.
Since the two data sets are united by being butted or joined together, it is fair to say they are ‘Spliced”.

Richard is correct: it is a splice.
Steve is right: it is not always a wrong practice.
In the case of Mann, the graph is based on a false premise about tree rings which are affected by multiple independent variables besides temperature.

Interesting posting.
Thanks Richard Courtney, many long thankless years waiting for the rest of us to catch up.
I appreciate your tireless efforts.
Much of the noise and fury here seems to be centred on the “quality” of the snake oil,is it Courtney defined Brand or McIntyre defined Brand? That matters?
As Richard rightly called it its still snake oil.
The works of Mann will live in Infamy.

Though I think we should agree to pardon The Mann, if he comes clean.
For he has proven to be a truth seekers best friend, no individual has done more to turn public opinion against the IPCC and the CAGW meme.

Zeke Hausfather says:
May 12, 2014 at 3:47 pm
Theo Goodwin,
It matters where the proxy data ended if folks are accusing Mann et al of using “splicing” to suppress divergent proxy data. Briffa was not an author of MBH 98
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The divergence problem appeared versus the instrumental record in the range of 1950 to 1960 depending on which specific type of tree. So, for a document published in 1998, it had already been known of for nearly four decades, perhaps more. So, EVEN IF the presentation of data was in a manner that Steve M says is OK by the standards of a statistician, the fact is that anyone current on that specific field of science (of which Mann insists that he was not only current, but a leading researcher in the world on that topic) would have known that the proxy data did not track the instrumental record for nearly 1/3 the course of the instrumental record. To portray it in ANY WAY as being a good proxy with that information in hand is criminal.

Let’s start with Mosher and McIntyre (I admire both these guys a lot – I was taken aback by the dismissive and in Mosher’s case by down right meanness and insulting remarks) . There are also a lot of hair-splitters and semanticists too-refined with the benefit of an additional decade and a half of data and analysis to draw from who have cast a few stones. In an earlier comment on this thread I suggested that criticizing Newton because Einstein had a more encompassing theory would be considered an outrageous slur on the 17th Century genius about whom it wouldn’t be too severely hyperbolic to suggest invented physics and mathematics. Actually on that subject, I have read a lot of modern critiques of this fellow because he dabbled in alchemy and had spiritualistic and numerological notions. Since, Einstein has come in for criticism by modern physicists, although, none to my knowledge seems likely to make it on to a brief list of the “giants of sciants”.

Instead of a term (splicing) that clearly is not a description ( in any normal use of the term) of what goes on in the graphics under discussion, just instead precisely describe in climate science related (and associated formal statistical) terms the treatment of the relevant endpoints of the datasets in question in the subject graphic in MBH98.

That simple approach to what richardscourtney claimed was ‘splicing’ resolves itself into precise understanding. His use of ‘slicing’ initiated an incorrect premise into his argument.

There is no multicolored plot clearly indicating a difference between reconstructed and instrumental temperatures. In fact, the plotted reconstruction (Figure 5b) makes no indication either on figure or in caption that instrumental data is represented at all.

Also, in the running text the authors make pointed remarks about the uniqueness of certain years post-1980:

“Taking into account the uncertainties in our NH reconstruction (see Methods), it appears that the years 1990, 1995 and now 1997 (this value recently calculated and not shown) each show anomalies that are greater than any other year back to 1400 at 3 standard errors, or roughly a 99.7% level of certainty.”

If their post-1980 results are instrumental, how can they make such comparisons?

Theo my point is pretty simple.
Read Steve’s post on the epa.
In that you will see examples of how investigations
Made use of poorly argued imprecise accusations.
In short people like Courtney with no deep knowledge
Made trivial and wrong and tangential claims.
The defense proceeds by attacking the worst arguments
And avoiding the best.

That is indisputeable.

Comes now the styne case. My suggestion is that no one
Not Courtney not anthony has any business clouding
The debate with weak tangential non issues.

If Courtney were being sued and you were the expert
Who had selflessly devoted years of effort to the issue
I wouldnt say anything except “let theo make his case and if you dont have a comment on point thenn dont confuse
The marketplace of ideas.”

Congratulations to Richard Courtney for withdrawing from this thread. It was becoming bogged down with casuistic arguments and threatening to descend into undignified acrimony. Can we not accept that Messrs McIntyre and Courtney have differing views on a subject that is not critical to the overall AGW scandal, and let the matter rest there?

Steve McIntyre says:
May 12, 2014 at 7:14 am
Mann padded the MBH98 proxy reconstruction after its 1980 end point with instrumental data.
==============
padding proxy data with instrument data is most definitely ‘splicing of two different datasets’. the only issue is the length of the splice.

This would change the tail of the moving average, hiding any sharp trend break between the proxy and the temperature data. There is no way this is an acceptable mathematical approach. It most certainly has the appearance of a deliberate manipulation, to mislead the reader as to the facts shown by the true, un-manipulated data.

“Our method, as you know, doesn’t include any ‘splicing of two different datasets’”,
==========
I did not have sexual relations with that woman.

Like “sexual relations”, it all depends on the definition of ‘splicing’. If you define anything narrowly enough, you didn’t do it. You did something a whole lot similar, but of course that is the lie of omission. You leave out talking about “a whole lot similar”.

Excuse me, but the notion that tree rings are any sort of proxy for temperature is ludicrous.
Just to clarify the experimental design here: are Mann’s instrumental temperature records collected from the same location as his tree ring data? If not, how can there be any correlation?
Try calibrating the tree rings with real on site temperature data. Then maybe we will get somewhere. What? Can’t do that? Sorry, not my problem.

As to the treatment of the relevant endpoints, If the tree ring data is garbage, the conclusions are garbage. In that case the endpoints don’t matter. Sorry Mikey.

I think that the problem lies in the fact that the MBH98 Nature paper did not have a graph that looked like the one at the top of this post. Their reconstruction/actual temps graph in page 5 of this document: http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/shared/articles/mbh98.pdf was quite different and does seem to include a sufficient amount of information to discern that two different data sets were used in it. That the MBH98 conclusions regarding individual years/decades were unwarranted (as concluded by the Wegman and NAS reports) and that this graph was later misused to promote the famous Hockey Stick without the caveats in the original paper are a different issue. Having said that, I find Mosher’s reaction disgusting.

>>…so it actually overlaps with the proxy plot, there is a nearly perfect correlation,

>Yes, the proxy data sets were selected to do that using the (ridiculous) assumption that the proxy values which did that would have done the same previously and subsequently. [RSC]

It is relevant to recall how “that which was plotted” as tree ring temps was detected and selected. Finding a set of sets that was selected to give a certain shape and then tweaking which inputs sets to include and exclude until there was a period of overlap with thermometer data implies nefarious intent although one could claim it was ‘calibration’ (which I think happened).

In the circumstances, finding the ‘desired (flat) 600 year temp proxy that met the ‘overlap’ requirement happened to also find that it did not continue to overlap for the recent years. Plotting both on a chart? I still have a problem with the selection method which stands as an independent problem. Plotting both, also had issues even when carefully sifting through tree rings for the desired outcome (to match the real temps).

So the older thermometer data was truncated until the overlap occurred.
The tree ring proxy was truncated until the divergence occurred.
They were plotted as a single data set, according to the link above to the paper.

That is a splice. Clearly and unequivocally. It isn’t even tree ring temp proxies and temps, it is sifted garbage and temps. I could get the same ring-result by measuring sets of hot dog remnants at the Waterloo dumpsite if I was allowed to choose which summer weekends to include.

So where did the full colour version with text noting the two as separate come from? Which version was used to promote CO2-rooted AGW alarmism? The ‘annotated two-colour spliced’ one or the ‘B&W single series spliced’ one?

Excuse me, but the notion that tree rings are any sort of proxy for temperature is ludicrous.
Just to clarify the experimental design here: are Mann’s instrumental temperature records collected from the same location as his tree ring data? If not, how can there be any correlation?
Try calibrating the tree rings with real on site temperature data. Then maybe we will get somewhere. What? Can’t do that? Sorry, not my problem.

As to the treatment of the relevant endpoints, If the tree ring data is garbage, the conclusions are garbage. In that case the endpoints don’t matter. Sorry Mikey.

– – – – – – – – – –

Richard G,

I have seen cases made about all your points, and I have often found they are worth discussion in an open venue.

But, the year 2000 email that richardscourtney sent to Chick Keller (Los Alamos Nat’l Lab) which was forwarded to Michael Mann and the richardscourtney commentary response to Mann’s email critical of richardscourtney deals with specific issues that are not specifically the ones you mention.

The specific issues mentioned by Mssrs Mann, Keller and Courtney are the ones at hand initiated by richardscourtney.

The idea that what Courtney says will be confused with what Steve says strikes me as nonsense.

However, the more important point is that you are calling for censorship. At present, it is voluntary self-censorship, but the fact that you are here making this argument worries me when I think what might develop from it.

In addition, please note that you are offering yourself as the censor. That too is worrying.

Theo my point is pretty simple.
Read Steve’s post on the epa.
In that you will see examples of how investigations
Made use of poorly argued imprecise accusations.
In short people like Courtney with no deep knowledge
Made trivial and wrong and tangential claims.
The defense proceeds by attacking the worst arguments
And avoiding the best.

That is indisputeable.

Comes now the styne case. My suggestion is that no one
Not Courtney not anthony has any business clouding
The debate with weak tangential non issues.

If Courtney were being sued and you were the expert
Who had selflessly devoted years of effort to the issue
I wouldnt say anything except “let theo make his case and if you dont have a comment on point thenn dont confuse
The marketplace of ideas.”

– – – – – – – – –

Steven Mosher,

I appreciate you staying around to augment your initial comment with additional comments. Please do it more often.

It is indeed a marketplace of climate science ideas. When putting ideas into the market we all should have a disclaimer that the ideas are our own and do not represent the views of others. We should say all errors are strictly our own.

Your caution for us all to show restraint in marketing climate science ideas seems reasonable.

I think there are enough resources at WUWT for anyone to get counsel before marketing a climate science idea.

Mosher – a question – what do you call the style of verse that you used in your first and most recent comment?

Mikel Marinelarena @ May 12, 2014 at 6:36 pm
Look at Figure 7 in MBH98. The top panel labeled “NH” is the proxy reconstruction augmented with instrumental temp data. The caption of that figure does reflect that, and two different line styles are used.

Closer inspection of Figure 5b does show that instrumental data is used, and the notation on the graph “ACTUAL DATA (1902-1995)” acknowledges it. I thought that line was only being used to show that the reconstruction was normalized to the 1902-1995 mean.

Steven Mosher;
Comes now the styne case. My suggestion is that no one
Not Courtney not anthony has any business clouding
The debate with weak tangential non issues.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Seriously? You think the discussion here about an email exchange is going to cloud the issue in a court of law? Are you of the position that Steyn’s lawyers are somehow obligated to take this information to court? That they cannot consider for themselves what points to argue and what points not to argue? Do you suppose that Mann would bring this information to court in order to accuse himself with it so that he could rebut it? Exactly how does discussing it here harm Steyn’s interests in any way? If it is a weak issue then it will be exposed as such in the discussion. You pressing for the discussion to be closed on the basis of your personal opinion is frankly, absurd.

Thank You Aphan ! !Yes, the two different data sets were clearly shown in two different colors. The problem is that by overlaying them in a point where they “match up”, and then continuing on with only ONE of the sets, it automatically leads the viewer to assume that the FIRST data set either ENDED at that moment, OR that it continued to match the second data after that, so that essentially, the SECOND set “picks up where the last one left off”. Using the word “updated” in the caption to the original chart is also meant to lead the viewer to conclude that the second data set is just a newer, better, reflection of the first set.

If the first data had continued on, it would not have shown a hockeystick. The second data set didn’t go back far enough to be reliable. It was a match made in heaven ONLY for someone with an agenda, and the fact that they “matched” for only a split second in scientific time, was all they needed to shove this chart, this newborn “climate scientist”, and the AGW theory to the forefront of the climate debate.

You have most concisely summarized this entire thread. All the gnashing and hubris does not matter. And yes, the core of folks that would do such are true divine believers in the religion of the church of CO2 caused global warming. The will NEVERadmit to being / doing wrong. They will die with their agenda. Why, Oh Why do we continue to bring knives to their gunfight ?

There are several other issues in the final decades of MBH 98/99, which I think are arguably just as serious, for instance Steve has commented concerning the “Swindlesque S-curve” that he was unable to reverse engineer it. The problem is that with the original 40-year smoothing, come 1978 onwards, an additional non-existent 20 years of data into the future was required. I recall that at one stage Jan Esper concluded that his dendro community methodology to fill-in the “missing” data at the time, 2002 (?) was naughty. (paraphrasing…. But he then went quiet on it). However, he and all continued the same way but mostly reduced the smoothing interval to 30-years, and thus a lesser version of the same problem.

There is a wonderful demonstration of a mea culpa on this by the UK Met Office and their strange 21-year weighted smoothing method. When they found that their original imaginary data fill-in approach didn’t give the desired approach they changed it:http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/smoothing.html
Figure’s 2 & 3 are most relevant

I have withdrawn from this thread and I interpose with this post to clarify what I wrote and what I did not write.

At least one person has understood what I originally said in 1998, said in the quoted email from year 2000, and have been saying in this thread. It is clearly stated by ‘Crispin in Waterloo but really in Yogyakarta’ at May 12, 2014 at 6:56 pm here.

Please note that there is no mention of Briffa’s work and no mention of the ‘divergence problem’. Assertions that I was discussing those are silly because those issues had not yet been published in year 2000, and the discussed email was in year 2000. However, I did raise the issue of ‘apples and oranges’ because it suggested that there would be a ‘divergence problem’ (which later proved to be the case).

As ‘Crispin in Waterloo but really in Yogyakarta’ says

So the older thermometer data was truncated until the overlap occurred.
The tree ring proxy was truncated until the divergence occurred.
They were plotted as a single data set, according to the link above to the paper.

That is a splice. Clearly and unequivocally. It isn’t even tree ring temp proxies and temps, it is sifted garbage and temps. I could get the same ring-result by measuring sets of hot dog remnants at the Waterloo dumpsite if I was allowed to choose which summer weekends to include.

My complaint in 1998 and repeated in 2000 in the email to Keller was precisely that; i.e.
the method of MBH98 could be applied to anything (including “hot dog remnants”) and the result would be equally valid as a method to discern past temperatures. And Mann’s assertion that the method

While I am still in the middle of getting caught up to date on May12ths harvest of fascinating clarifications about MBH98 and Mann between Steve McIntyre and Richard S Courtney, let me kindly REMIND readers and participants about the crucial shifting grounds underlying IPCC science and traditional practice in climatology back then.

The era 1998 to 2001 was a crucial time because the IPCC changed from observing and describing the potential AGW problem (1990 and 1995) to making a definite attribution of ‘a discernable human influence upon the climate’ (SPM, 2001, if memory correctly serves), and claiming the anthropogenic theory of global warming as “science.”

Over the late 1990s, also, I think, we saw the changing of the guard from the Old School cautious, synoptic climatologists to the Young Turks like Mann and climate modellers like Ben Santer, aggressively staking out their carerr-building claims making their international scientific reputations, and as respectable scientific pioneers. Old School climatologists such as Richard Lindzen – and even founders of the field’s methods like William Gray – began retiring then, and with them their venerable tradition of scrupulous scientific conduct and that remains beyond reproach, as well as cautious claim-staking and caveat-making in their science. These senior scientist cohorts definitely dominates at gatherings like the Heartland Institutes (soon to be) 9 Conferences, in stark contrast to the Richard Alley’s and Peter Gleick’s that populate AGU conferences.

My point is this: the issue of data handling, presentation with appropriate sensitivities, and allegations of misuse of the record between Steve and Richard here is absolutely fundamentally the same as the one waged between, say, Bill Gray and Kevin Trenberth in Colorado, or Will Happer and Michael Oppenheimer at Princeton University.

By the turn of the century, the effects of the Clinton era’s federal spending upon ‘climate science’ – increasing the budget 10 times in a single budget year of 1993 – had created a swarm of New Recruits to do the governments and eco-activists work on the global warming problem. This resulted in not only a dilution of cautious traditions that have been crowded out in publicity and personnel, but also important changes in the accepted and acceptable methods of science.

I can understand that Steve McInyre is not much interested in tracking and following this signal transition – and Richard Courtney may or may not either – but many kibitzers here reading the many blogs that attempt to follow and criticize climate science are.

To my mind, Steve is the brilliant analyst and revered master of long-form science criticism – and Richard is the leading role-model of the shortest form (with possibly many other commenters coming a close second), usually posting here.

While Anthony Watts himself is an indefatigable and timely master science-provocateur, his concision is sometimes uneven. And thus while his productivity is without peer and his shared talent pool unequalled, science bloggers like Joanne Nova and climatologists Judith Curry (as well as Roy Spencer and Roger A. Pielke, Sr.), are either more consistently concise or else measured and fair to the material, I believe.

After our most accomplished host come a few other skeptic bloggers like Jeff Id and Andrew Monfort. No doubt other serious readers will come different estimates of the bloggoverse – with maybe a different list of candidates – than I do.

These kudos dished out, I hope the larger picture of hoping and attempting – and yes, needing – to better understand the transition from traditional climatology to the well-poisoning free-for-all of climate science’ is very important to diagnosing the institutional transition that vexes CAGW-skeptics. This larger perspective is essential to ‘get right’ if anything appropriate is ever going to done to right the good ship of sound climate science, so the world can continue to flourish with human benefit.

This thread untangling of the Hockey Team’s exegetical founding claims over Mann reminds me of a famous quote from Sir Walter Scott: “Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive.” Richard’s complaint goes to Mann’s motives – and Steve and he differ as to how revealing those motives might be interpreted in MBH1998s crucial graph.

I still remember this period (1998-2001) of science news, and it affected my own transition to becoming a “worried warmer” – if the replication of these findings occurred. And with the IPCCs TAR in 2001, it did. And this transition of my own personal commitments (and back again, but sharply qualified and more deeply informed) is shared with the popular science writer Matt Ridley, as he explained in his Prospect review of Montford’s “The Hocker Stick Illusion.”

I want to thank the named and many unnamed participants to this thread for once more clarifying my understanding of “The Age of Global Warming (as historian Rupert Darwell trenchantly dubs it).

Richard reminded: “Yes, the proxy data sets were selected to do that using the (ridiculous) assumption that the proxy values which did that would have done the same previously and subsequently.”

The minor definition of “sophisticated” comes to mind: “Perverted or corrupted (an argument, etc) by sophistry.”

It was especially jaw dropping to me early on, as a trained laboratory scientist, that Mann’s followup to his original hockey stick used an algorithm to cherry-pick versus reject noisy individual proxies that likely randomly matched the recent instrumental data, claiming this was “objective” and so perfectly legitimate. A sense of everyday perspective is called for here, as would be lawyers try to turn everything into linguistic technicalities.

It’s also funny how the trolling opportunist Mosher thinks he has a his own hockey stick halo just for bashing Mann. That’s the oldest me-too trick in the book of snake oil salesmanship.

>Thank You Aphan ! !
>>Yes, the two different data sets were clearly shown in two different colors. The problem is that by overlaying them in a point where they “match up”, and then continuing on with only ONE of the sets, it automatically leads the viewer to assume…

I am not correcting your position or comment, but I want to extend it a little by pointing that there is an inherent claim in MBH98 regarding the core message. The core message is that the temperature of the NH and therefore probably the planet was pretty constant for centuries and leapt up suddenly when the industrial revolution got under way – because of CO2.

There are two data sets shown in the relevant graph: some ‘proxy data’ and some temperature measurements. The temperatures were measured with thermometers. It is crucial to understand (and state) that the other line’ is not a set of temperature data, nor is it a proxy for temperature data as it is contradicted by anthologies of weather reports and actual measurements.

To know what that line actually is, it is necessary to understand what Steve McIntyre uncovered and I don’t have time for all that here. But it is enough to remember that it is not a set of temperature data, proxy or not. It is just a wiggly line that was produced by a method that has no validity, and which happened to overlap some of the real temperature data during part of the time series. The included data sets were chosen on that basis.

The graph is a plot of the wiggly line that is not temperature, truncated so the part after the overlapping portion was not visible (because it did not agree with the instrument temperatures). The second thing that happened is the temperature plot was also truncated but on the older part leading up to the overlap, again, to prevent us seeing that the wiggly line did not agree with it.

The core claim in the paper is that the wiggly line represents the temperature of the planet (or NH if you like) and it is displayed in a manner that makes it look as if, when instruments became available, they overlapped (“affirming the accuracy” of the wiggly line) and thereafter instrument temperatures were shown. I have carefully considered Steve M’s point that a splice is two things represented graphically as one and not clearly stated as being different. He is right in general, but this is a special case of deception because Mann knew that the wiggly line was not representative of temperatures, and he went out of his way to make the overlapping period appear to confirm that it was, stating they were two different sets of information. We know Mann knew it was not representative of temperatures because when the rest of the data he had in hand was included, the MWP appeared. He only got his wiggly line by selectively removing data sets (tree rings) from those available, famously hiding those extracted from the set in a file called “Censored data”. This was not initially revealed in the ClimateGate emails, it was worked out before that by Steve, amazingly.

Richard’s complaint was that the way this thing was done is a ‘splice’. Consider: If I did it with two tree branches, it would be a splice. If I did it with two garden hoses that happened to cross each other at some point, it would be a splice. If I did it with two different sizes and colours of wire, cutting off the unused portions, such an overlapping joint is called a ‘splice’.

My telling you I have, for example, two types of apple trees on a single root stock trunk does not mean the joint is not a splice; one can’t say the wires were not spliced. That is what a splice is: I take the bottom of the tree cutting off all the branches I don’t want to keep and splice onto into it one or more branches I like. I report to the buyer that is what I did and how I created it. My wife has such a tree with 5 varieties of apples on it.

The core issue is whether or not you are led to believe that the root stock is also an apple tree. It could be an orange tree. “Apples” in Mann’s case are temperatures measured by instruments. Mann claimed that the wiggle line was also ‘temperatures’ produce by his jiggery-pokery method of analysing tree ring widths. That line does not in fact represent temperatures and he knew it when he made the claim in a way that induced people to believe that it did.

A key process in this inducement was to show an overlapping section at the ‘end’ of the wiggle line and the beginning of the ‘instrument line’. This splice is analogous to splicing an apple tree branch onto an orange tree trunk. Both are ‘truncated’ in order to create the chimera. Inspecting the overlap (literally in both cases) could convince an unsuspecting customer that the root stock is also an apple tree. As they grow so well together at the overlap, a claim that ‘this is an apple tree’ made from two distinct tree parts from different gardens might be convincing, even if untrue.

Richard is calling an orange an orange, an apple an apple. Mann’s claim the whole tree “is the same as an apple tree” is bogus, we now know, on two counts: The splice was a convenient subterfuge and the wiggly line did not represent the historical temperatures of the NH. It was a slick piece of work, but made in support of fraudulent claims: that there was no MWP and that human industry was causing an unprecedented rise in global temperatures by releasing CO2 into the atmosphere.

What followed from this crafted lie has been a very expensive piece of human history and the noble-cause corruption of the field of climate science, its publications and many of its main actors.

Late to the party as usual, I do wonder why such an honest and objective person as Steve McIntyre has taken so much offence at what seem to me (and many others here) to be perfectly reasonable initial remarks by Richard Courtney.

However, there is someone else commenting on this thread, who really does deserve to be called out. I’m no Josh, but I have my talents!

There was once a young fellow called Mosher,
Whose conduct got gaucher and gaucher.
He called names in blank verse,
“Third-rate thinker,” and worse!
Don’t you understand, Steve, that ain’t kosher?

My view is that the MBH98 hockey stick graphic in question was a dramatically crafted sales device to a targeted customer. It was made possible by members of the climate science community who were in support of a need for a sales pitch and additionally made possible by peer review in a scientific journal as scientific status for the sales pitch.

It is apparent that the intended general customer for the sales pitch was the IPCC TAR process and the specific customer was the group leading the IPCC TAR chapter that Mann (one of MBH98’s authors) became an IPCC lead author of.

The IPCC’s charter is to myopically prove significant AGW from fossil fuels (not to objectively study the Earth Atmosphere System for increased understanding of it), and I think Mann’s work product aspects are consistent with 100% support of that charter by some questionably expedient means.

However, those problematic aspects do not mitigate the specific issues with richardscourtney’s year 2000 email (to Keller at Los Alamos Nat’l Labs) nor does it mitigate issues with his criticism of Mann’s comments about that email.

My thoughts on this: I suspect the major area of “vigorous discussion” among friends here is largely due to an elephant in the room that’s so obvious it hasn’t really been called out.
There are (at least) two significant audiences for that graph, with two widely divergent methods of interpretation.Audience #1 is the scientific community. Serious scientists understand first of all that simple correlation doesn’t imply all that much. Many scientists do various comparisons between data sets, statistically, visually and by other means. There’s nothing wrong with this. A scientist can validly claim that this aspect of such a comparison is perfectly valid. And Mann can claim with some validity that if their graph is misinterpreted by those who don’t understand, that’s not their problem.Audience #2 is the public, specifically the public who absorb mass media. The public barely understands science let alone statistics. Sadly, a majority today are quite gullible. Sadly too, many in the media are just about as gullible, and too easily will reproduce a nice looking graph and cut its meaning off at the knees by failing to recognize that the color in the graph had crucial importance.
Feynman argued that one of the most important duties of the scientist is to carefully avoid misleading anybody. Sadly again, too many scientists today do not follow that advice.
My sense:Steve McIntyre is looking at Audience #1 and correctly stating that from a scientific perspective, there are bigger / more meaningful errors that can’t even pass scientific muster.Richard, Anthony and more are looking at Audience #2 and correctly stating that from a communication perspective, Mann’s graph is clearly and unequivocally misleading to the public.
IMHO, you’re both correct.

While Anthony Watts himself is an indefatigable and timely master science-provocateur, his concision is sometimes uneven. And thus while his productivity is without peer and his shared talent pool unequalled, science bloggers like Joanne Nova and climatologists Judith Curry (as well as Roy Spencer and Roger A. Pielke, Sr.), are either more consistently concise or else measured and fair to the material, I believe.

[. . .]

– – – – – – – – – –

Orson,

I think you “believe” what you said about our host at WUWT.

But, you must address a question which you begged in your assessment of our WUWT host. Your begged question is: Why?

Why does our WUWT host achieve the well-recognized goal of a very educational stimulation of both scientists and supporters of science? It is likely because of tolerance for the open marketplace for climate science ideas in a reasonably moderated and civil setting. Our host simply does this better than the other venues you mentioned.

I respect you for saying your somewhat critical comment about our WUWT host to his face here at WUWT. Thank you for that integrity. I have little respect of the lack of integrity shown by richardscourtney in his backhanded insulting comment here at WUWT about Steve McIntyre; richardscourtney should have had the integrity to say it directly to Steve McIntyre at CA.

I have little respect of the lack of integrity shown by richardscourtney in his backhanded insulting comment here at WUWT about Steve McIntyre; richardscourtney should have had the integrity to say it directly to Steve McIntyre at CA.

What “it” was a “backhanded insulting comment” and why should I have said “it” “directly to Steve McIntyre at CA”?

There’s no point going back to apple trees to discuss the term “splice”, because to anyone writing in paleoclimate of the last millennium, the term means a digital combination of two series. That’s how Mann (or myself) would interpret the complaint in Courtney’s original email. Now it seems that Courtney’s complaint pertained to plotting. But there’s no way that Mann (or myself) would have been able to guess that from Courtney’s email.

People who take umbrage at plotting the reconstruction and observations on the same plot should also recall that this was regularly done in articles to which Courtney did not object. Briffa et al 1998 – which showed the divergence problem – showed such a plot.

But to fully show the absurdity of Courtney’s complaint, recall the famous Lamb diagram of the MWP (also shown in IPCC 1990). The Lamb diagram showed the Central England temperature record in its later portion and a reconstruction from documents in its earlier portion. It didn’t merely show these two disparate records on a graphic, but actually spliced them. Anyone who is complaining about the Mann 1998 graphic should be hyperventilating about the Lamb diagram.

Too much of this present thread seems to be animated merely by dislike of Mann and partisan cheering of someone merely for opposing Mann than by informed skepticism.

There’s no point going back to apple trees to discuss the term “splice”, because to anyone writing in paleoclimate of the last millennium, the term means a a digital combination of two series. That’s how Mann (or myself) would interpret the complaint in Courtney’s original email. Now it seems that Courtney’s complaint pertained to plotting. But there’s no way that Mann (or myself) would have been able to guess that from Courtney’s email.

People who take umbrage at plotting the reconstruction and observations on the same plot should also recall that this was regularly done in articles to which Courtney did not object. Briffa et al 1998 – which showed the divergence problem – showed such a plot.

Taking your latter quoted point first, you seem fixated on the irrelevance of Briffa reconstructions. This thread is about my complaints at MBH98 in years prior to its inclusion in IPCC AR3.

Those complaints are evidenced in the ‘climategate’ email quoted above. The Briffa reconstructions with associated ‘divergence problem’ did not then exist so could not be pertinent to the subjects under discussion. And those subjects have both scientific and historical importance because the errors I pointed out would have been sufficient to reject the MBH98 graph for the use the IPCC gave it.

Your first objection is daft. It says

Now it seems that Courtney’s complaint pertained to plotting. But there’s no way that Mann (or myself) would have been able to guess that from Courtney’s email.

There was no reason to “guess” because my words in the email were clear and explicit ; i.e.

You say;
”

”As to Michael Mann’s “hocky stick” paleo-temperature graph, I realize why many attack it for it puts the nail in the coffen of the argument that recent natural variability is as large as what has been observed in the 20th century.

No ! People attack the ‘hockey stick’ because it is uses an improper procedure to assess inadequate data as a method to provide a desired result. I have defended Mann et al. from accusations of scientific “fraud” because I am willing to accept that this was done in naive stupidity, but I am not willing to accept that is good science. As you say, “people like Mann, Briffa, Jones, etc.” have conducted “careful work”, but doing the wrong thing carefully does not make it right.

The ‘hockey stick’ is obtained by splicing two different data sets. Similar data to the earlier data set exists for up to near the present and could have been spliced on, but this would not show the ‘hockey stick’ and was not done.

Clearly, Keller raised the issue of “Michael Mann’s “hocky stick” paleo-temperature graph” and I addressed the subject of that graph. The splicing concerned the data sets shown in that graph.

Also, when you disputed the matter in this thread my response pertained directly to the graph. At May 12, 2014 at 8:58 am I replied to you saying

Of course different data sets can be plotted on the same graph for comparison.
BUT
That is NOT the same as taking selected parts of two data sets and splicing them together which is what MBH98 does and I complained about.

The remainder of your post has no relevance to this thread and is silly. For example, you say I should object to Lamb having spliced similar data because I object to Mann having spliced dis-similar data. There are many, many things I have not done but none of them are pertinent to the validity of my early objection the the MBH98 ‘hockey stick’. And the splicing of similar data is not the same as splicing dis-similar data.

I make no comment but ask a question because I am curious to know so I suspect others may be, too.

re your post at May 13, 2014 at 8:40 am,
what “issues” require what “mitigation” and why?

Richard

– – – – – – – – –

richardscourtney,

Issues.

Please see my only comment that was prior to your voluntary withdrawal (now lapsed) from this thread (your withdrawal which started with your comment informing withdrawal => richardscourtney @ May 12, 2014 at 2:41 pm)

Please see my six comments posted after your voluntary withdrawal (now lapsed) from this thread.

[Whitman adds] two more offensive and unclear and probably untrue assertions; viz.

John Whitman says:
May 13, 2014 at 9:27 am

@ Orson (May 13, 2014 at 12:48 am)

[. . .]

I respect you for saying your somewhat critical comment about our WUWT host to his face here at WUWT. Thank you for that integrity. I have little respect of the lack of integrity shown by richardscourtney in his backhanded insulting comment here at WUWT about Steve McIntyre; richardscourtney should have had the integrity to say it directly to Steve McIntyre at CA.

What “it” was a “backhanded insulting comment” and why should I have said “it” “directly to Steve McIntyre at CA”?

– – – – – – – – –

richardscourtney,

Steve McIntyre’s rebuke of you at CA was sufficient unto your personal insult to him here at WUWT. In the situation he was a gentleman and was quite benevolent.

Yes, the original IPCC graph undoubtedly came from the Lamb 1965 version but almost certainly the IPCC had come across it in the much more recent book of Lambs ‘Climate History and the Modern World’ dating from 1982, figure 30 chapter 5 figure a b and c

This was one of hundreds of diagrams Lamb drew and is merely an approximate schematic broadly representing the temperature, and for people to call the data he used, ‘spliced’ puts it on a par with the deliberate juxtaposition of data that appeared in Manns version.

Dr Mann knew this graph of his was the centrepiece of the IPCC document and it should have been more clearly labelled as it purported to be an accurate historic and scientific representation,which Lambs original graphic was never intended to be.

I have obtained Manorial Records, translated estate documents from Latin. unearthed diaries and other works from the Met Office library and elsewhere, back to 1200AD, so can say that Lambs crude schematic is generally historically more accurate than Manns Hockey stick.

However, Lamb underestimates the warmth of the 16th century I feel, and also the late 1300’s were very warm. Incidentally, numerous scientists have confirmed that CET is a reasonable-but not perfect proxy for global or at least NH temperatures.

The paleo proxy data is not capable of showing the annual and decadal temperatures and in consequence the variability shown in the hockey stick and the Spaghetti derivatives are unrealistic under representations of our actual real world climate.

We could of course have another discussion as to whether a ‘global’ temperature has any real meaning but we can leave that to another time.

I suggest that there are so many errors in MBH98 that Richard, Anthony and Steve can all be essentially correct. There is much fine detail in this discussion, but the conclusion remains:

“Mann and the IPCC were clearly wrong about the hockey stick – the only remaining question is not one of error, it is one of fraud.”

I suggest that events since 2006 have clearly decided the question of error versus fraud.

“It took eight years before the “Divergence Problem” was revealed, also in testimony. Mann grafted modern surface temperature data onto earlier tree ring temperature proxies to produce his upward-sloping “hockey stick” graph. Grafting together two different datasets is usually NOT good scientific practice.”

Why did it take eight years for the Divergence Problem to be revealed and only in testimony, presumably under oath? Does this suggest honest scientific practice?

Finally and for the record, I have found Richard S Courtney to be a highly intelligent, informative and honorable person, and a first-rate thinker. I have found his respectful disagreements in his long debate with Ferdinand Engelbeen to be highly informative. Furthermore, Richard has pointed out pertinent papers to me that demonstrate that he is widely read on this subject of climate science. I have great respect for Richard and value him as a knowledgeable colleague in this important debate.